Wild Rovers
| Wild Rovers | |
|---|---|
Box art for VHS version
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| Directed by | Blake Edwards |
| Produced by | Blake Edwards Ken Wales |
| Screenplay by | Blake Edwards |
| Starring |
William Holden Ryan O'Neal Karl Malden |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Philip Lathrop |
| Edited by | John F. Burnett |
|
Production
company |
Geoffrey Productions
|
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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Running time
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136 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Wild Rovers is a 1971 American Western film directed by Blake Edwards and starring William Holden and Ryan O'Neal.
Originally intended as a three-hour epic, it was heavily edited and changed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer without Edwards' knowledge, including a reversal of the ending from a negative one to a positive. Edwards disowned the finished film as released, and later satirised his battle with the studio in his comedy S.O.B., which also starred Holden.
An aging cowboy, Ross Bodine, and a younger one, Frank Post, work on cattleman Walt Buckman's ranch in Montana. A neighboring sheepman, Hansen, is in a long-running feud with Buckman.
Ross has a dream of riding off to Mexico to retire from the hard work of the range, but he doesn't have much money saved up. Frank suggests they rob a bank and head for Mexico together.
While Ross thinks this over, he and Frank brawl with Hansen's men at a saloon. Buckman intends to withhold their pay to make restitution for the saloon's damages.
Desperate for money now, Ross agrees to the holdup. He takes banker Billings to town at gunpoint while Frank holds the banker's wife, Sada, hostage at home. Ross rides back with $36,000. Before making a getaway, he gives Billings $3,000 so that Buckman's other cowboys won't lose any pay they have coming.
Sada tells her husband to keep the money and not inform the sheriff. A posse is formed that includes Buckman's two sons, hot-tempered John and easy-going Paul, told by their father that no cowhand of his is going to get away with breaking the law.
Ross and Frank get as far as Arizona and go into town for supplies. Ross hires a prostitute while Frank plays poker. A card player dislikes Frank's winning of a huge pot and shoots him in the leg. Ross comes to his partner's aid and a shootout commences, leaving several people dead.
Back home, Buckman and Hansen have a run-in that results in both their deaths. John and Paul hear about their father's fate from a Tucson sheriff. Paul wants to turn back but John becomes obsessed with fulfilling the old man's last request, catching the bank robbers.
Frank refuses to see a doctor, and his leg injury grows much worse. Ross has to pull him behind a horse on a stretcher. Frank dies from the wound just before John and Paul turn up on the trail, where Ross is gunned down. Disgusted with the entire affair and sorry he had to shoot Ross, Paul rides off, leaving John alone struggling to return Ross' dead body to the scene of his crime.
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Wikipedia