The film’s narrator, actor Burgess Meredith, is the aged voice of “Lucius McCaslin,” the boy at the center of the story. He begins: “There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not yet be old enough to desire the fruits of it, which is not innocence but appetite; his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it, which is not ignorance but size.”
       The 19 Jul 1967 Var announced that former Columbia Pictures executive Arthur Kramer formed an independent production company the previous week and signed husband-and-wife team Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr. to write the screenplay for William Faulkner’s final novel, The Reivers, a 1962 Pulitzer Prize winner. The couple had already written scripts for two other Faulkner works: The Long Hot Summer (1958, see entry) and The Sound and the Fury (1959, see entry). Kramer took the project to CBS Theatrical Films, a new feature film-producing subsidiary of the Columbia Broadcasting System, the 15 Jan 1968 DV noted. CBS Theatrical Films had earlier announced in the 25 Oct 1967 LAT that it planned to make twenty-two movies at a combined estimated budget of $60 million. Four months later, the 28 Feb 1968 DV reported that the company had a $20.5-million investment “in negatives, prints and advertising in five pix” scheduled to be finished or in production by July 1968. One of them was The Reivers, starring Steve McQueen. With his participation in the film, McQueen’s company, Solar Productions, Inc., became a co-producer. Columbia's Arthur Kramer died six months before filming began, according to his obituary in the 28 Mar 1968 DV.
       The 3 Jul 1968 and 26 Sep 1968 editions of DV reported that producer-screenwriter Irving Ravetch, executive producer Robert Relyea (from McQueen’s Solar Productions), and director Mark Rydell were in Memphis, TN, and Carrollton, MS, scouting locations. An item in the 4 Oct 1968 DV noted that principal photography began 30 Sep 1968 in the Carrollton area, where most of the film was shot. The 1 Nov 1968 DV claimed, tongue-in-cheek, that on the previous day Carrollton had “the largest per capita acting population in the country” because 150 of the town’s 500 residents were working as extras. From Carrollton, production moved to the larger town of Greenwood, MS, in the next county, as illustrated by a promotional advertisement for actress Sara Taft in the 8 Nov 1968 DV. An advertisement in the 8 Nov 1968 DV stated that Mississippi filming was “completed” and the production was returning to CBS’s Studio Center in Studio City, CA.
       Filming came to a halt “for a short period of time” when twelve-year-old costar Mitch Vogel fell from a horse and broke his shoulder, the 29 Nov 1968 DV reported. According to the 1 Jan 1969 Var, shooting would resume six weeks later, on either 6 Jan or 13 Jan 1969. When the production returned to California later in the month to film a crucial horse race scene at the Disney Ranch in Newhall, CA, a “two-month barrage of rain” created further delays, as noted in the 28 Jan 1969 DV and a film review in the 1 Jan 1970 LAT. The track became a shallow “lake,” and helicopters were used “to fan the water” and evaporate it. An item in the 25 May 1969 LAT mentioned that after lengthy delays, director Mark Rydell finally got around to matching a six-year-old jet black quarter horse with another six-year-old sprinter that had already been filmed on Eastern race tracks. McQueen by then had moved on to another project, but was present at the film’s final scene as “just an excited spectator.” The racing strip was finally dry “after much effort to make it safe for both riders and horses,” who were cheered on by a crowd of extras in 1905 costumes. Rydell and cinematographer Richard Moore used four Panavision cameras “strategically placed around the track.” Originally budgeted at $4 million, The Reivers finished at a cost of over $5 million.
       The vintage yellow automobile at the center of the story was a 1905 Winton Flyer, built by “antique car buff” and professional customizer Von Dutch, whose real name was Kenneth Howard.
       The 8 Jul 1968 LAT hinted that the black television comedian Flip Wilson would make his film debut as “Ned McCaslin” in The Reivers, if his busy schedule permitted, but the role was ultimately taken by Rupert Crosse. According to items in the 31 May 1969 LAT and 25 Jun 1969 Var, Lalo Schrifrin was set to compose and conduct the film’s score, and Marilyn and Alan Bergman would add lyrics to Schrifin’s theme melody, but the three were not ultimately involved in the film’s soundtrack.
       Items in the 6 Aug 1969 Var and 12 Nov 1969 DV reported that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) threatened The Reivers with an X-rating until the producers trimmed a couple of lines and a small segment of a bordello scene. The film was granted an “M” for “Suggested for Mature Audiences,” a ranking instituted by the MPAA in 1968 and revised a year later to GP (General audiences, Parental guidance), which would be inverted in 1971 to PG.
       The Reivers was previewed for the American Film Institute’s faculty and students on 5 Dec 1969, according to that day’s DV. It opened nationally on Christmas Day 1969. Long before filming was completed, full-page advertisements ran in both trade magazines and newspapers, including the 8 Nov 1968 DV and 27 Oct 1968 LAT, to explain the word “reivers” (Scottish in origin) to American audiences. The headline, “A Reiver is a rascal,” led to a description of the lead character, Steve McQueen’s “Boon Hogganbeck,” as “a scoundrel,” “a louse” who “steals, gambles, and cheats….You’ll love him.”
       Reviews were generally positive. The 26 Nov 1968 Var called The Reivers “a nice bawdy film, sort of Walt Disney with an M rating,” and focused attention on “the vivid presence” of “the golden 1905 Winton Flyer, the type of machine that in its day lured men and boys to abandon responsibilities and trusts, and take off in the pursuit of the illusion of romance and adventure.” The 21 Dec 1969 LAT found it “an enjoyable movie indeed,” which “triggers a powerful nostalgia.” The 26 Dec 1969 NYT felt the screenwriters did a “decent adaption” from Faulkner’s novel, unlike their earlier “ransack[ing]” of two other Faulkner works, but felt that casting Steve McQueen gave the Boon Hogganbeck character “an inappropriate cool and class and shift[ed] the film’s attention from its nominal protagonist, young Lucius.”
       The Reivers did well at the box office. A month after its opening, a chart in the 27 Jan 1970 Var put its gross at nearly $1.5 million.
       The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Music (Original Score—for a motion picture [not a musical]—John Williams; and Actor in a Supporting Role—Rupert Crosse.