Most helpful customer reviews
|
|
Charming cowboy comedy, May 11 2003
Henry Fonda and Glenn Ford co-star as a pair of almost-over-the-hill cowpunchers whose love of the free life, and plain lack of horse sense, have kept them pinned to the same lousy job year after years, and also from settling down with any of the gals that moon over them when they come down from the hills long enough to spend their dough. These guys are loveable foul-ups, roustabouts who haven't quite figured out how to get ahead, but sure like doing things the hard way. Plenty of light comedy (including some of the most charming early '60s sexist jokes you're ever likely to see) and a funny love-hate relationship between Ford and the one horse he simply cannot break. It's nice to see Ford and Fonda play characters who just ain't that bright, each in their own typical understated style. Cute film -- recommended!
|
|
|
They sure don't make 'em like they used to...do they?, Feb 24 2003
The inspired, superb teaming of Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda help raise this laid back film from almost certain obscurity. Based on the novel by Max Evans 'The Rounders' emerged as a sleeper hit when released in '65 and after all this time continues to defy the odds and remain a real audience pleaser today. Told with all too rare simplicity and filmed on alternately stark locations and colorful vistas, screenwriter and director Burt Kennedy crafts another one of his long series of winning films. Ford and Fonda play the aging bronc-busters (or 'cowboys with their brains kicked out' as Ford says) Ben Jones and Howdy Lewis just trying to earn enough money for a boat so they can live on the ocean...or a desert isle...or...well anywhere "where there ain't no grass and there ain't no horses!" as Ben firmly explains it to Howdy. Two factors stand in the way of their dreams: working for a stingy rancher who tries to pinch the duo for what he can and their own penchant for wasting every dime they earn in a matter of days when they make the annual journey into Sedona.As the movie opens it is early autumn; Ben and Howdy reluctantly accept work from Jim Ed Love, a rancher they both love to hate. Part of their duties includes attempting to tame a furious and ornery young mustang properly named "Ol' Fooler". The horse quickly becomes their arch nemesis as it continually defies their attempts at bronc-busting; wily old veterans they refuse to be done-in by the stubborn animal and will eventually talk Love into letting them keep it as part of their pay. Ben and Howdy brainstorm that they can make a mint and leave their hard-luck days behind at the annual rodeo in Sedona by betting that no one can ride their varmint of a horse for longer than eight seconds. The plan goes fairly well but they encounter an unexpected twist of events that threatens to ruin the guys' enterprise and sink their dreams fast. It shouldn't amount to much - but it does. One of the very best supporting casts ever assembled helps out tremendously providing endless appeal and colorful characterizations. Chill Wills, Edgar Buchanan, and both Kathleen & Joan Freeman show up as the story progresses and have fairly expanded roles. Barton MacLane, Denver Pyle and Doodles Weaver appear in cameo roles that seem tailored perfectly to their talents. An uncredited Warren Oates plays a bumbling gun-crazy wrangler that runs afoul of Jones and Lewis. The best surprise of all though is Sue Ann Langdon and Hope Holiday as two attractive and voluptuous ladies that Ben and Howdy happen upon when they make the late spring journey into Sedona. This sequence of the film supplies us with it's funniest and most memorable moments. Made at a time when films could be both sparse of activity and routinely but unabashedly sentimental 'The Rounders' is living proof that comedies don't have to be big, bold and brassy to be enjoyed. For a refreshing change of pace and an opportunity to see Ford and Fonda at their most likeable I heartily recommend you set aside some time for this flick.
|
|
|
A not much of a movie plot, Jul 11 2001
THE ROUNDERS is a not much of a movie plot. It's just a good movie. Unlike those wonderful B Westerns from the 1930s, these cowboys--Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda--got to drink hard "hotch" and also kiss the girls as well as the horse. It is a film that defines great countryside, solid friendship, how dreams keep yuh going, how great a movie can be without much of a plot, and how yuh learn to love your enemy. In this case, the enemy is that cagey Roan roping, bucking horse that slo-witted Ford tried his dangdest to break and couldn't. He wants to run down the horse with a pickup, shoot it,send it to the glue factory [soap product in this case] or sell it to some sucker willing to buy it. In the end bronco-busters Ford and Fonda don't bust the cantankerous Roan, but they prove that you can make an endearing story into a movie without getting maudlin about it. Three CHEERS and a DOZEN YIPPEES for this film.
Was this review helpful to you?
 
( | |
(8 customer reviews)
See all 8 customer reviews...
