When you’ve worked in retail as long as I have, you’ll start to notice cultural details about the job, bonds that form between co-workers by virtue of the job that we’re doing. I don’t want to spend my whole life working retail, but I do love the behind-the-scenes culture that grows in each store. I know this is corny – and I wouldn’t be presumptuous enough to say that my co-workers feel the same – but to me, it’s like a second family, drawn together by the business we’ve chosen to help us earn our paycheck.
Because I live close to two universities, one of the retail stores I worked at included a lot of college students among its ranks. Not only that, but I don’t think there’s many people who want to spend their whole lives manning a cash register or processing returns at the service desk. Because of that, I’ve happily worked with people to whom retail was just a side job, something that made life livable while they strove toward their REAL goals. I’ve worked with actors, artists, hairdressers, and people with other dreams. (As an aspiring writer/actor, I count myself among these people!)
There’s another group of people who were prevalent at every store where I’ve worked: the seasoned veterans. These are the people who’ve weathered many a Black Friday and Christmas Eve; who’ve been working at their position for so long that they know all the ins and outs, the people who you can always turn to for help knowing that they know how to handle your present struggle.
Sometimes, a member of that first group might wake up one morning to discover that they’ve become part of the second group. I was thinking about this regarding myself! I still have dreams of something bigger and I’m going to keep working for those, but I also realized that, this coming July, I’ll have been at the retail chain where I work for SEVEN YEARS. I work at a good place and I’m good at my job (he said humbly), but that’s a big chunk of time to be standing in retail when you have bigger plans.
(I haven’t lost hope in my own dreams; in fact, they seem closer than ever. Melancholy thoughts can occasionally crowd into the mind, though!)
As weird as this sounds, that brings us to Wild Rovers!
Wild Rovers (1971) focuses on two characters in a similar position, although they’re in a different profession: they’re cowboys on the frontier of the Old West. Ross Bodine (William Holden) and Frank Post (Ryan O’Neal) are two of several cowhands working for Walt Buckman (Karl Malden), a cattleman who owns a large Montana ranch. After one of their fellow cowboys is killed in an accident, Ross and Frank start thinking about their own lives, fantasizing about the leisurely lives they’ll have when their cowpunching days are over. However, those dreams are dashed when they realize that, with their current wages, they’ll probably never earn enough money to retire.
That’s when Ross gets a wild idea: why not rob the local bank?
The robbery is successful (despite a hiccup or two), and it’s done without any violence. Following its completion, Ross and Frank ride toward Mexico and the leisurely life they’ve only experienced in their dreams. However, Walt Buckman isn’t going to let his two former employees get away with their crime. When the sheriff decides not to pursue the two robbers beyond his jurisdiction, Walt sends his sons John (Tom Skerritt) and Paul (Joe Don Baker) to bring Ross and Frank back. Meanwhile, the two cowboys-turned-robbers are finding their ride to freedom more difficult than they anticipated, and the story’s going to take a tragic turn for them both.
Wild Rovers is a sympathetic-criminal story riding the coattails of films like Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), but Wild Rovers treats its subjects differently than the other two movies. We can get wrapped up in Bonnie & Clyde’s romance and enjoy Butch & Sundance’s buddy-chemistry, but they have a dark side; at least one of them have killed people during the course of their crimes. (Butch Cassidy doesn’t kill anyone until the third act of the movie, but Sundance has; in fact, he’s a famous gunfighter.)
On the other hand, Ross Bodine and Frank Post go out of their way to not harm anyone. Their robbery plan is designed so that there’s no shooting involved; it takes place at night when there’s no customers around, and while Frank and Ross point guns to show that they mean business, they don’t shoot anyone. On a similar note, Ross leaves behind three hundred bucks so that their fellow cowboys won’t miss their payday. He also gives the bank manager two hundred dollars as an apology for the emotional distress they caused. When, later in the movie, they’re forced to kill in self-defense, it’s a disturbing moment.
These aren’t hardened criminals, and there’s no bloodlust behind their actions. Ross and Frank are nothing more than two dreamers, wishing for a life that seems beyond their reach. While robbery isn’t a good solution to their problems, it’s easy to understand why they feel that there’s no other way to achieve their goals. We aren’t excited to see Ross & Frank get punished, because we know they aren’t bad guys.
I like that Blake Edwards-the writer/director behind Wild Rovers-had enough compassion for Ross and Frank to elevate them beyond archetypal western outlaws. By making them more human, Edwards made them more relatable to the audience members. Very few of us know what it’s like to be a violent criminal (and few would admit it if we did know). However, most of us know what it’s like to have dreams and to occasionally feel like those dreams are out of reach. Ross and Frank feel the same way, and that’s what makes the movie unique.
Unfortunately, Wild Rovers had the misfortune of being made at MGM under the tenure of President James T. Aubrey. Hired by businessman Kirk Kerkorian to cut costs at the studio, Aubrey wasted no time making his presence known; he canceled twelve movies, fired 3,500 employees, and ordered the sale of MGM’s collection of props and costumes (including items like The Wizard of Oz‘s ruby slippers). Aubrey also had a reputation for being very hands-on when it came to post-production. There are several movies made under his tenure that fell victim to editing-room trouble, and Wild Rovers lands in that category.
Blake Edwards had planned for Wild Rovers to be a three-hour epic. However, Aubrey decided that an epic framework wasn’t to be Wild Rovers‘ fate, and he re-edited the movie, removing forty minutes. Edwards was disappointed in the final result; he had considered the movie to be his best film, and he felt that the re-edited movie reduced the story to a typical cops-and-robbers western.
But the story doesn’t end there! Years later, Edwards got a call from an archivist at MGM. The archivist said that, while he was searching the archive, he had found much of the footage that had been removed from Wild Rovers. Edwards took the film back and integrated it into a director’s cut, which was released on home video in 1986. This version doesn’t restore all forty minutes, but it comes close! The extended version is the one I saw on Tubi.
After watching the movie, I think I can guess which scenes were edited out, and it hurts my heart to think about the stuff that was (probably) removed. There are scenes and sequences that could be removed without hurting the structure of the story, but those moments make Ross and Frank relatable!
There’s one scene that the American Film Institute confirms was missing: the moment when, after the robbery, Ross leaves money for his fellow cowboys and the bank owner. The fact that Aubrey removed that scene symbolizes that he didn’t get what made the story tick. Because he didn’t understand what Edwards was going for, he cut the emotional core out of the movie. Leaving the money behind is an important moment, one that shows that Ross Bodine and Frank Post are two good guys who made a big mistake in a fit of quiet desperation.
If Aubrey cut that scene, I can only imagine what other character moments he removed. As I think about the scenes that could have been deleted, I realize that Blake Edwards was right: take out those moments, and Wild Rovers becomes a typical western about two fugitives. All the character work that makes the movie unique would’ve been gone like a chalk drawing in the rain.
But that’s in the past, and we have the director’s cut. I don’t think Wild Rovers is a perfect movie by any means, but I like what it’s trying to do. This is a tragic tale about two regular people who dream of something more, much like me or my fellow retailers. Ross Bodine and Frank Post follow their dreams into criminal activity, which I don’t condone. Still, this is a movie that looks at big-dreaming everyday people and says, “I see you,” and feeling seen is worth a lot.
The Vintage Vestibule 