Wild Rovers

Ross Bodine, an ageing cowboy, has spent his whole life moving other men's cattle and owns nothing. With a younger hand, Frank Post, he decides to do one job: rob a bank and cross into Mexico. The robbery is the easy part; afterwards their employer's sons come after them. Blake Edwards wrote and directed the only western he ever made. William Holden plays Bodine, Ryan O'Neal plays Frank and Karl Malden plays Buckman, the rancher. What happened to the film is remembered more than the film. Edwards's cut ran 130 minutes; after a poor reaction at sneak previews MGM removed twenty-four minutes and changed the ending. Edwards disowned it and years later turned his fight with the studio into another film with Holden, S.O.B., released in 1981. The director's cut came back. In 1986 MGM put out a 137-minute version on home video, restored by Mike Schlesinger from an international negative that had escaped the studio's cuts. Who it is for: viewers who like late westerns and heroes who lose. Who it is not for: anyone who needs to know which version they are watching. The short cut is still in circulation and it leaves the film meaningless.