Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western buddy film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman. Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman), and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid" (Robert Redford), who are on the run from a crack US posse after a string of train robberies. The pair and Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), flee to Bolivia to escape the posse.
The film was released on September 24, 1969<ref name=AFI /> and initially received lukewarm reviews from critics, but over the years it has since garnered some retrospective reappraisal. In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref name="NFR1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="NFR2">Template:Cite web</ref> The American Film Institute ranked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as the 73rd-greatest American film on its "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)" list, and number 50 on the original list. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were ranked 20th-greatest heroes on "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains". Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was selected by the American Film Institute as the 7th-greatest Western of all time in the AFI's 10 Top 10 list in 2008.
Plot
[edit]In 1899 Wyoming, Butch Cassidy is the affable, clever, talkative leader of the outlaw Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. His closest companion is the laconic dead-shot "Sundance Kid". The two return to their hideout at Hole-in-the-Wall to discover that the rest of the gang, irked at Cassidy's long absences, have selected Harvey Logan as their new leader.
Logan challenges Cassidy to a knife fight over the gang's leadership. Cassidy defeats him using trickery, but embraces Logan's idea to rob a Union Pacific train on both its eastward and westward runs, agreeing that the second robbery would be unexpected and thus reap more money than the first.
The first robbery goes well. To celebrate, Cassidy visits a favorite brothel in a nearby town, where the town marshal unsuccessfully attempts to organize a posse to track down the gang, only to have his address to the townsfolk hijacked by a friendly bicycle salesman. Sundance, meanwhile, visits his lover, schoolteacher Etta Place. Cassidy joins up with them the next morning, and takes Place for a ride on his new bike.
On the second train robbery, Cassidy uses too much dynamite to blow open the safe. The explosion demolishes the baggage car in the process and the money flies everywhere. As the gang scrambles to gather it, a second train arrives carrying a six-man team of lawmen. The crack squad pursues Cassidy and Sundance, who try to hide out in the brothel, and then to seek amnesty from Sheriff Bledsoe, to no avail.
The posse remains in pursuit, and it includes renowned Indian tracker "Lord Baltimore" and lawman Joe Lefors, recognizable by his white skimmer. Cassidy and Sundance elude their pursuers by jumping from a cliff into a river far below. They learn from Place that the posse has been paid by Union Pacific head E. H. Harriman to remain on their trail until they are both killed.
Cassidy convinces Sundance and Place that the three should go to Bolivia, which he envisions as a robber's paradise. On their arrival there, Sundance is dismayed by the living conditions and regards the country with contempt, but Cassidy remains optimistic. However, they know too little Spanish to pull off a bank robbery, so Place attempts to teach them the language. With her as an accomplice, they become successful bank robbers known as Template:Lang. However, their confidence drops after seeing a man wearing a white skimmer and fear that Harriman's posse is still after them.
Cassidy suggests "going straight", and he and Sundance land their first honest job as payroll guards for a mining company. However, they are ambushed by local bandits on their first run and their boss, Percy Garris, is killed. They kill the bandits, the first time Cassidy has ever shot someone. The duo concludes the straight life is not for them. Sensing they will be killed should they return to robbery, Place decides to return to the United States.
Cassidy and Sundance steal a payroll and a burro used to carry it, and arrive in a small town. A boy recognizes the burro's livestock branding and alerts the police, leading to a gunfight with the outlaws. Cassidy has to make a desperate run to the burro to get ammunition, while Sundance provides covering fire. Wounded, the two take cover inside a building. Cassidy suggests their next destination should be Australia. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the two men, the local police have called on the Bolivian Army. The pair charge out of the building, guns blazing, into a hail of bullets from the massed troops who have occupied all the surrounding vantage points. The film ends with the sound of gunfire on a freeze-frame shot of the two bandits.
Cast
[edit]Production
[edit]Screenplay
[edit]William Goldman first came across the story of Butch Cassidy in the late 1950s and researched intermittently for eight years before starting to write the screenplay.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Goldman says he wrote the story as an original screenplay because he did not want to do the research to make it as authentic as a novel.<ref name="Egan, p. 90"/> Goldman later stated:
The whole reason I wrote the ... thing, there is that famous line that Scott Fitzgerald wrote, who was one of my heroes, "There are no second acts in American lives." When I read about Cassidy and Longabaugh and the superposse coming after them—that's phenomenal material. They ran to South America and lived there for eight years and that was what thrilled me: they had a second act. They were more legendary in South America than they had been in the old West ... It's a great story. Those two guys and that pretty girl going down to South America and all that stuff. It just seems to me it's a wonderful piece of material.<ref name="Egan, p. 90">Egan, p. 90</ref>
The characters' flight to South America caused one executive to reject the script, as it was then unusual in Western films for the protagonists to flee.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Development
[edit]According to Goldman, when he first wrote the script and sent it out for consideration, only one studio wanted to buy it—and that was with the proviso that the two lead characters did not flee to South America. When Goldman protested that that was what had happened, the studio head responded, "I don't give a shit. All I know is John Wayne don't run away."<ref name="Egan, p. 91">Egan, p. 91</ref>
Goldman rewrote the script, "didn't change it more than a few pages, and subsequently found that every studio wanted it."<ref name="Egan, p. 91"/>
The role of Sundance was offered to Jack Lemmon, whose production company, JML, had produced the film Cool Hand Luke (1967) starring Newman. Lemmon, however, turned down the role because he did not like riding horses and felt that he had already played too many aspects of the Sundance Kid's character before.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Other actors considered for the role of Sundance were Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty, who both turned it down, with Beatty claiming that the film was too similar to Bonnie and Clyde. According to Goldman, McQueen and Newman both read the scripts at the same time and agreed to do the film. McQueen eventually backed out of the film due to disagreements with Newman. The two actors would eventually team up in the 1974 disaster film The Towering Inferno. Redford took the role as he liked the script.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Jacqueline Bisset was a top contender for the role of Etta Place.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Filming locations include the ghost town of Grafton, Zion National Park, Snow Canyon State Park, and the city of St. George. These areas remain popular film tourism destinations, including the Cassidy Trail in Red Canyon.<ref name="Visit Utah 2021">Template:Cite web</ref>
Soundtrack
[edit]Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote the song "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" for the film. Some felt the song had the wrong tone for a Western, but George Roy Hill insisted on its inclusion.<ref name="McEvoy">Template:Cite news</ref> Robert Redford, one of the stars of the film, was among those who disapproved of using the song, though he later acknowledged he was wrong:<ref name="McEvoy" />
Personnel
[edit]- Marvin Stamm − trumpet<ref name="Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid">Template:Cite web</ref>
- Pete Jolly − piano<ref name="Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"/>
- Hubert Laws − flute<ref name="Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"/>
- Bob Bain, Bill Pitman − guitar<ref name="Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"/>
- Tommy Tedesco − ukulele<ref name="Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"/>
- Carol Kaye − electric bass<ref name="Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"/>
- Emil Richards − percussion<ref name="Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"/>
Release
[edit]Premieres
[edit]The world premiere of the film was on September 23, 1969, at the Roger Sherman Theater, in New Haven, Connecticut. The premiere was attended by Paul Newman, his wife Joanne Woodward, Robert Redford, George Roy Hill, William Goldman, and John Foreman, among others.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It opened the next day in New York City<ref name=AFI/> at the Penthouse and Sutton theatres.<ref name=opening>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Home media
[edit]The film became available on DVD on May 16, 2000, in a Special Edition that is also available on VHS.Template:Citation needed
Reception
[edit]Box office
[edit]The film grossed $82,625 in its opening week from two theatres in New York City.<ref name=opening/> The following week it expanded and became the number one film in the United States and Canada for two weeks.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It went on to earn $15 million in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada by the end of 1969.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> According to Fox records the film required $13,850,000 in rentals to break even and by December 11, 1970, had made $36,825,000 so made a considerable profit to the studio.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It eventually returned $45,953,000 in rentals.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
With a final US gross of over $100 million, it was the top-grossing film released in 1969.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
It was the eighth-most-popular film of 1970 in France.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Critical response
[edit]After release, reviewers gave the film mediocre grades, and New York and national reviews were "mixed to terrible" although better elsewhere, screenwriter William Goldman recalled in his book Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade.<ref name="Goldman, Which Lie">Template:Cite book</ref>
New York Times film reviewer Vincent Canby wrote that the film is "very funny in a strictly contemporary way", but said that "at the heart of the film there is a gnawing emptiness that can't be satisfied by an awareness that Hill and Goldman knew exactly what they were doing---making a very slick movie". He described the "Raindrops" sequence as part of an effort to "play tricks on the audience" by "taking short cuts to lyricism". The performers, Canby wrote, "succeed although the movie does not".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Time magazine said the film's two male stars are "afflicted with cinematic schizophrenia. One moment they are sinewy, battered remnants of a discarded tradition. The next, they are low comedians whose chaffing relationship—and dialogue—could have been lifted from a Batman and Robin episode." Time criticized the "Raindrops" sequence and the "scat-singing sound track by Burt Bacharach at his most cacophonous", which it said made the film "absurd and anachronistic".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Roger Ebert scored the film at two and a half out of four. He praised its beginning and the three lead actors, but felt it progressed too slowly and had an unsatisfactory ending. But after Harriman hires his posse, Ebert thought the quality declined: "Hill apparently spent a lot of money to take his company on location for these scenes, and I guess when he got back to Hollywood he couldn't bear to edit them out of the final version. So the Super-posse chases our heroes unceasingly, until we've long since forgotten how well the movie started."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Ebert reaffirmed his review in 1989 stating that he still thought it was a "turkey" and was baffled by its success.<ref name="youtube.com">Template:Cite AV media</ref>
Gene Siskel also disliked the film stating he thought it was predictable and writing that it was "too cute to be believed … not memorable".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Siskel would later admit in 1989 that publishing his negative review was one of his first challenges as film critic, recalling that the editorial assistant was shocked that he was giving a bad review to a film starring Paul Newman and would give him a lesson that he had to be honest as a critic, no matter how unpopular his opinion.<ref name="youtube.com"/>
Accolades
[edit]Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid also appears on several of the American Film Institute's 100 Years lists.
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (1998) – #50
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills (2001) – #54
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains (2003)
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – #20 Heroes
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs (2004)
- AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores (2005) – Nominated<ref>AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores: Honoring America's Greatest Film Music, Official Ballot American Film Institute via Internet Archive. Retrieved June 30, 2024.</ref>
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes (2005)
- "Kid, the next time I say, 'Let's go someplace like Bolivia', let's go someplace like Bolivia." – Nominated<ref>AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes, Official Ballot American Film Institute via Internet Archive. Retrieved June 30, 2024.</ref>
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) (2007) – #73
- AFI's 10 Top 10 (2008) – #7 Western Film<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Legacy
[edit]Template:See also American movie reviewers have been widely favorable. The film holds an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 61 reviews with an average score of 8.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "With its iconic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, jaunty screenplay and Burt Bacharach score, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has gone down as among the defining moments in late-'60s American cinema".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay eleventh on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The February 2020 issue of New York Magazine lists Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2003, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was selected by The New York Times as one of The 1000 Best Movies Ever Made.<ref>The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made The New York Times via Internet Archive. Retrieved June 30, 2024.</ref> In the same year, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref name="NFR1" /><ref name="NFR2" /> In 2008, British film publication Empire magazine ranked the film #32 on their list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.<ref>Empire's The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time Empire via Internet Archive. Retrieved June 30, 2024.</ref>
The film inspired the television series Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy as outlaws trying to earn an amnesty.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
A parody titled "Botch Casually and the Somedunce Kid" was published in Mad. It was illustrated by Mort Drucker and written by Arnie Kogen in issue No. 136, July 1970.<ref>MAD #136 July 1970 Template:Webarchive at Mad cover site.</ref>
Also in 1976, a made-for-television sequel to the film was released. Wanted: The Sundance Woman more heavily features Katharine Ross as Etta Place.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1979, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, a prequel, was released starring Tom Berenger as Butch Cassidy and William Katt as the Sundance Kid. It was directed by Richard Lester and written by Allan Burns. William Goldman, the writer of the original film, was an executive producer. Jeff Corey was the only actor to appear in the original and the prequel.Template:Citation needed
Television adaptation
[edit]In September 2022, Amazon Studios announced a television adaptation, starring Regé-Jean Page and Glen Powell. Joe and Anthony Russo will be executive producers under their AGBO production banner.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
[edit]- List of American films of 1969
- Antihero (Cassidy and Sundance are considered "antiheroes".)
References
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]External links
[edit]Template:Wikiquote Template:Commons category
- Template:AFI film
- Template:IMDb title
- Template:Rotten-tomatoes
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- Ten Things You Didn't Know About Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Template:Webarchive from the American Movie Classics "Future of Classic" blog
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at Virtual History
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 Template:ISBN, pages 654–655 [1]
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