The Rounders (1965)

I love this movie so much

Good movie but grossly overrated

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda play two ageing bronco-busters, making a meagre living breaking wild horses. They fantasize about a wonderful retirement of a island paradise- but their weakness for wild girls and booze leaves them forever with no money in the bank. The hilarity in this film comes in the the form of a stubborn, old roan horse, who causes the two endless frustration trying to break him and finally a back-firing scheme to make some real dough entering the wild horse as a bucking bronco in a rodeo. Ford and Fonda are a pair of perfectly matched characters in this film, with riotous comic antics and witty dialogue, this western is very funny from start to finish. Sue Anne Langdon and Hope Holiday play two floozy type girls the cowboys pick-up along the way. A very risqué scene for the time takes place as Ford and Fonda cleverly hide the girls bare derrières using their cowboy hats as they manoeuvre their way through a crowd. Chills Wills, Edgar Buchanan and Denver Pyle along with other characters help to round out this very amusing western comedy. I really enjoyed this lighthearted film with Glenn Ford's dreamer character and Henry Fonda's character being a little more sensible, but gullible enough to still go along with Glenn Ford's cockeyed ideas.

Fans of Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda should enjoy this movie if for no other reason than to watch those two play off of each other. Two modern day cowboys Ben and Howdy (Ford and Fonda) hire out to break a wild horse for rancher Jim Ed Lowe(Chill Wills). They have worked for Jim Ed before and have little respect for him however as usual they need the money. What happens next is pure fun (for the viewing audience) with Sue Ann Langdon and Hope Holiday providing the love interest in the film. What that horse does to those two cowboys makes the movie well worth watching. The film is loaded with acting talent including Kathleen Freeman,Denver Pyle, and Edgar Buchanan all fine supporting characters and veterans of westerns. The actual stunt riding is handled by veteran Pro rodeo rider Casey Tibbs I believe though he may be directing other riders at times. I rate it excellent.

So said the agreeable Henry Fonda to just about every suggestion Glenn Ford or other cast members made to him.This the first of a series of very agreeable entertaining comic westerns that Burt Kennedy directed and/or wrote starring some of Hollywood's great but aging male stars. I think for the first and only time both Ford and Fonda play a pair of losers. They seem to forever be in financial bondage to their off-and-on employer Chill Wills. Wills just out-slickers Ford and Fonda just goes along with that line that must have been repeated about 8 times in The Rounders.But their biggest problem comes from a white-faced roan horse that Wills has talked the gullible Ford into taking. The horse named "Old Fooler" has a streak of cunning malevolence that provides most of the laughs in this comedy. If there was a special award given to animals for performances Old Fooler should have won it in 1965. In fact that horse created his own acting genre, the animal anti-hero.Burt Kennedy gave us a lot of good laughs starting in the mid60s with his films and this is one of the funniest.

I was quite surprised when I watched this, thinking it was a western when actually it wasn't. The picture is set in 1950s or 60s and the locations at times makes you wonder if it was set in 1800s.The director makes some interesting comparisons between the lonely west and the modern town. The performances are good, especially the horse. The director made excellent use of the widescreen frame. This is unwatchable in pan and scan.Not a great film but certainly worth watching for locations and direction. Could've done with a better screenplay.