Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) dir. George Roy Hill
Parts of this story are true. There actually were outlaws named Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) who belonged to the Wild Bunch. They did indeed rob banks and trains. They did indeed move to Bolivia when things got hot for them in the United States, along with Sundance’s girlfriend Etta Place (Katherine Ross). And they disappeared from history, likely dying in a shootout with the local military. But this is after all a Hollywood movie, so allowances are made.
The movie starts with a very early movie depiction of the Wild Bunch robbing a train, with the movie proper beginning near the end of the outlaws’ American career. The Old West is dying, even in Wyoming. Banks have installed new tougher security systems, people are leaving to enlist in the Spanish-American War, and the town marshal’s attempt to recruit a posse to go after Butch and Sundance is interrupted by a bicycle commercial.
Trains are still good pickings, but when the Wild Bunch robs the same company once too often, Mr. E.H. Harriman of the Union Pacific hires a crack team of top lawmen at great expense to hunt Butch and Sundance down. This relentless pursuit, and the failure of an attempt to get a pardon by serving in the war, convince our protagonists that it’s time to move to greener pastures.
Despite some initial hiccups (Butch is not nearly as fluent in Spanish as he thought he was), the daring duo do quite well as banditos down south. Until, that is, the law starts closing in again.
There’s a lot to like in this movie, starting with the use of sepiatone for various sections, the refusal to translate Spanish so that many in the audience are just as lost as the characters, and the score by Burt Bacharach. (Okay, so maybe I have a grudge against “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” due to its ubiquity on easy listening radio back in the day, but it’s a good song, and I like the distant thunder leitmotif for the “superposse.”) Butch and Sundance are fun roguish fellows with clever banter, and Newman and Redford do a good job of selling their friendship. Etta Place is also well-written in a way that was rare for female characters in Westerns of the day.
Some of the scenes run over long, and the movie could probably lose about ten minutes and still be just as good. Also, there’s the whole romanticizing of hardened criminals thing–Butch and Sundance don’t steal from the rich to give to the poor, but from available piles of money to give to themselves, and if Butch winds up being very generous to random folks, that’s just his good nature.
Content note: Etta is introduced in a scene that looks non-consensual until it’s revealed to be a role-playing game she and Sundance play. Butch frequents prostitutes. There’s some fin de sicle-style fanservice. Oh, and a fair amount of people getting shot, especially in the second half. And a smattering of rough language. The movie got an “M” rating back in the day, but would probably be okay for high-schoolers on up.
Overall: This is one of a kind, and most assuredly a classic movie. See it with a friend.
