Wild Rovers (1971) Took us half a lifetime, but I finally caught up with writer director Blake Edwards' little seen expansive revisionist western.......in its full 136 minute director's cut.
So much to love about it.......and a lot of head scratching as I viewed it.
You could tell what Edwards was attempting here...an ambitious, near epic length story to equal films in the then burgeoning 'deconstructed western' genre' (kick-started with a vengeance by Sam Peckinpah's earth-shattering 1969 "The Wild Bunch" and the Sergio Leone-Clint Eastwood "Dollars" trilogy.)
These new westerns coldly upended every standard comforting cliche and trope that soothed and entertained audiences since the silent movie era. They aspired to a more brutal, honest depiction of what life in the old West was really like.
No real heroes, nobody with any moral compass except their own self interest, and an unforgiving landscape where anyone could die at any moment.....violently. For little or no reason. And most importantly, using this harsh, merciless view of the West as a mirror of then current America, torn apart by the Vietnam war, race riots, assassinations and government corruption.
So Blake Edwards took his shot, so to speak at this genre, but he was too much a crowd-pleasing, born entertainer to make a purely spare and arid revisionist western.
He shows obvious affection for his two main characters (a big no-no for these films) and he's not above displays of sentimentality and romanticism, something you'd almost never catch sight of amid the carnage of other Western deconstructions.
The film follows the punishing, hard life of two cattle ranch cowboys. One of them is the aging, worn out, leathery Ross Bodine (William Holden, doing a kinder, gentler version of his "Wild Bunch" character. And the other is Bodine's most unlikely best friend, young hothead all around idiot Frank Post (Ryan O' Neal). They spend long days herding the livestock for stern cattle baron Walter Buckman (Karl Malden) and his two sons Paul and John (Joe Don Baker, Tom Skerrit).
And since Buckman's conducting his own personal war against infringing sheep herders, Bodine and Post don't mind engaging the sheepmen in a monumental barroom brawl.
On an impulse, the exhausted weary Bodine goes along with Post's foolish plan to rob the town bank and take off to Mexico to start their own ranch. The rest of the saga, which Edwards keeps at a slow reflective pace, follows the duo as they make their escape, hunted down by the two Buckman sons at the command of their father.
Any other director making a revisionist Western, would stick to the playbook.......little or no dialogue, little or no music score and a visual palette of nothing but dusty brown.
But Blake Edwards gives his movie the heft and look of a eye-popping, full-fledged epic (something along the lines of William Wyler's "The Big Country") The landscapes are photographed with stunning, suitable-for-framing clarity and composer Jerry Goldsmith accentuates the visuals even more with a classic, sweeping score, guaranteed to make your blood run faster every time you hear it.
While the filmmaking here bursts with enthusiasm and gorgeous cinematography, the star-crossed journey of Bodine and Post remains grim sorrowful and ultimately headed for inevitable tragedy .As in all revisionist westerns, sooner or later blood is bound to spurt from bullet holes. Frequently.
I'll admit the clash of styles here makes for an uneven film. The John Ford-ish grandiosity and rip roaring Goldsmith score seem at odds with the minimal, stark simplicity of the storyline.......and yes, it's as far from an action-packed western as you can get.
I still found it fascinating to sit through and many of the dialogue exchanges that Edwards peppers his script with were sharply crafted enough to make me sit up and take notice.
Edwards endured the great misfortune of making this film for MGM, then under the toxic ruinous rule of James Aubrey, a TV barracuda tasked with gutting the studio and re-editing its new releases into unwatchable mincemeat...."Wild Rovers" suffered the same treatment. (See out post of 2/4/21 on "The Carey Treatment", the subsequent Edwards MGM effort destroyed by Aubrey)
So a debt of gratitude goes out to TCM for airing the uncut "Wild Rovers" and Warner Archive for making it available on Blu-Ray. Good job guys. And if you follow 1970's cinema, westerns or Blake Edwards movies, it's more than worth checking out. 4 stars (****)
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