Tony Mastroianni Review Collection
Little Movie, Big Impression
Cleveland Press May 21, 1965
"The Rounders" is a small Western with nary a grim moment in it. It's practically plotless, makes up for the lack of story with a couple of finely done characterizations by Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda.
The two actors play a pair of seedy, not very bright bronco riders who travel about in a truck picking up jobs where they can, dreaming of the day when they can break out of their rut but not doing much about it.
They go to work for a wealthy, double-dealing rancher (Chill Wills), the smiling heavy of the film. There's one particular horse they can't break and can't get rid of, try as they might. And this provides what little thread there is to it all.
THEY SPEND the winter in the mountains rounding up strays, pause to get drunk with an old fellow (Edgar Buchanan) who makes moonshine, dally along the way with a couple of showgirls as the producer goes out of his way to drag sex into the film, end up at a rodeo and start all over again.
The movie has wonderful outdoor color photography, better than some done for bigger films. Ford and Fonda seem to be having fun in their non-heroic cowboy parts.
It's not great, but it's different.
