An Undiscovered Epic Western Movie Masterpiece in Director Blake Edwards' WILD ROVERS.
Written: Sep 03 '00 (Updated Jan 26 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: Superb newly reconstructed Western, with story, cast, photography and musical score to match.
Cons: Beware the 109 minute theatrical release and criticism stemming from it.
The Bottom Line: William Holden, in shape for his last great physical role, stars in a classic about two cowhands who refuse to be exploited their entire mean lives.
The era of the Post War Epic Film, which began in the 1950's, lurched to halt in the early 1970's, not to be seen again for years. WILD ROVERS (1971) became a victim of the Vietnam War's inflation, and perhaps the success of a little film named EASY RIDER (Hopper, 1969), which cost tens of thousands and made millions of dollars, opening up a new market in stoned youth. While Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH (1969) slipped under the wire, and was seen in its original state a few times in large American cities, Blake Edwards' WILD ROVERS, designed as a road show, was stripped bare of its musical design, held up, cut by over 30 minutes, and thrown on the market, an incomprehensible mess. For a man who had seen his share of failures, the box office disaster of WILD ROVERS was total, his least successful film up to that time.
Restored to its full 138 minutes in 1993, not many people know that it is one of the Great Westerns.
Like Billy Wilder's similarly butchered *THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1970), Edward's film was very personal, unlike anything he made before or after. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1922, during the final haze of the Old West, Edwards (BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, 1961; THE PINK PANTHER, 1964; VICTOR/VICTORIA, 1982, etc) worked lovingly on the screen play, the casting and the directing of this quiet, realistic story about, literally, the End of the Trail.
Filmed on several locations, principally in the vastness of Arches National Park, Utah, Veteran Edwards' Cinematographer Philip Lathrop's Panavision Photography contains, amid unfailing artistry, at least one of the most extraordinary sequences ever filmed.
The time is 1893, the end of the open range in the West, the bitter finale of the War of the Cattlemen against the Sheepherders. Jerry Goldsmith's Coplandesque Overture strikes up under a widescreen freezeframe of two riders loping out of the Dawn. And shortly we see them riding into the headquarters of a large Montana cattlespread: an opening both poetic and documentary.
At the Big House, a prosperous cattleman, Walter Buckman (Karl Malden), perfunctorily orders his breakfast from Wife Nell (Leora Dana), as his two scruffy sons Paul (Joe Don Baker) and John (Tom Skerrit) stagger to the table. The conversation, as usual, concerns the final showdown with the local sheepmen.
Down at the bunkhouse, the hands are eating their breakfast. We see the friendship between a middleaged cowman, Ross Bodine (William Holden), and a young buck, Frank Post (Ryan O'Neal). The credits come up over the bosses and foremen joining with the hands to ride out for a normal day of herding, roping, branding -- stringing and maintaining fences.
But on this day, in the late afternoon, a suddenly bucking horse catches Barney, a dispensable cowboy, against a rail of the corral. He is killed instantly. Walter Buckman's reaction to his foreman is, "Send him into town. Hire another one. We're going to need 'em for the roundup."
The task falls to Bodine and Post, and while driving a wagon, with Barney's corpse rolling about in the backend, they begin a philosophical discussion which will continue throughout the movie. Frank is 25 and Ross is 50. Neither has ever married, and neither will ever be able to support a family. Because they are not able to save enough money to change their condition, whenever they get paid they spend their silver, like most cowboys, on drink, cards and women. This town errand gives them an additional occasion, but the question about a purpose for their lives has been raised.
Ross Bodine's dream is to somehow find a relatively small sum of money, in order to buy a tract of land in Mexico. [Invidious comparisons have been made between this film and *THE WILD BUNCH or *BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, but an apter match is one with OF MICE AND MEN -- Milestone, 1939]. That sets Frank Post, puppy like in his admiration for Ross, to thinking about what they might do to accomplish the dream.
On the outskirts of town, they tip their hats to the local banker and his attractive wife.
In the town bar, having a couple of drinks before steaks and an hour at Maybell's, they get into a fight with a family of sheepmen. The sympathetic Sheriff (Victor French) obliges his old acquaintance Bodine by letting the groggy drunks, by dead reckoning, be drawn back to the ranch, in a wagonbed which recently bore poor Barney to his beggar's grave. As the horse trots out of town, a final humiliation comes when one of Maybell's girls, without a glance, drenches the sleeping pair with the contents of her chamberpot from a second floor gallery.
Walter Buckman is seethingly furious with Bodine and Post the next morning because of their encounter with the sheepmen (who, significantly, were jailed), the damage to the bar, and the attention called to the reputation of himself and the family operation. Buckman promises them he will deduct a chunk of their pay each payday until the debts are paid. Later in the day, Frank, smarting at being singled out, suggests to Ross they return to town that night and rob the banker. Ross, hung over and feeling his age, agrees.
Of course, events are not as simple as their hasty plan might have promised. Yet, in spite of losing a precious horse to panther attack near the Banker's house, they come away with $36,000, a fortune in 1893. Because much of the money represents the payroll of various ranches roundabout, Bodine guiltily gives back to Banker Billings (James Olson) several thousand dollars to cover the pay of their saddlemates at the Ranch, and he throws in $500 for the trouble caused Banker's Wife Sada (Lynn Carlin) and her family.
Meanwhile, Buckman's two son's have once again spent an evening at Maybell's, causing a ruckus which prompts Maybell (Rachel Roberts) to fire a shotgun, bringing the Sheriff and his deputy.
The next morning, Buckman, no stranger to trouble and Maybell's himself, is mortified anew, and sends his two sons as a penance to track down Bodine and Post.
Several scenes, excised from the original, destroyed some of these motivations, including a key one in which the Banker and his Wife ponder, argue about, but eventually pocket the $3,000 Ross gave them. They, too, would have to save for many years to have such a sum. The apparently callous betrayal of the Ranch, its owners and hands, will solidify the resolve for revenge among Buckman and his sons. (In the truncated version, the arbitrary cuts often led to critical derision.)
The rest of WILD ROVERS has John and Paul Buckman track Bodine and Post (as they head for Mexico) out of Montana, into Wyoming, and then Utah, posse after posse dropping back at statelines, pressing on relentlessly, redoubling on the death of their Father, Walter, in a shootout with the disgruntled sheepmen.
Adventures, tender, humorous and violent, are the lot of Ross Bodine and Frank Post, as they try to figure out in their prosaic way the meaning of their lives. During the process, they become true friends, to the death.
The event which dooms them is a foolish night of pleasure (one they postponed back home) ending in a poker game gone bad. But the event they will remember is when both of them, in the high snow country of Wyoming, separate from a racing herd a desperately needed wild horse, which Ross breaks and makes saddle worthy.
This scene was planned for dry ground, but when Edwards' production crew reached the site, it had snowed. Both Holden, 52, and O'Neal, 30, agreed that if they could do it before a hard icy crust formed on the field, they would perform the sequence on the spot themselves. That is Holden riding the wild horse in many of those scenes; the pair of them roping the horse. It is one of the most beautiful outdoor action pieces I have ever witnessed.
Following an Intermission with Entr 'Act for piano, penny whistle and orchestra, the story plays itself out to its inevitable conclusion.
No, WILD ROVERS did not copy THE WILD BUNCH, released two years earlier; it is a much smaller, less aggressive film. Nor are Ross Bodine and Frank Post much like BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. The comparison is, as I've said, with OF MICE AND MEN, in characterization, relationships, study of class; and perhaps, for the mood of the mise-en-scene, with Altman's MCCABE AND MRS MILLER (also shot in 1971). However, WILD ROVERS does have an uncanny affinity with parts of LONESOME DOVE (Wincer), which was done nearly 20 years later.
Insist on the restored 138 minute edition of this lovely film, not the cowardly producers' 109 minute travesty.
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