Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), directed by George Roy Hill.
The most famous western outlaw buddy comedy. Loosely inspired by real characters, it is another story -- along with The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) -- that writer William Goldman had to tell as soon as he heard it.
In the late 1960s filmmakers worshiped outlaws and rebels. Add humor, romance, a couple of handsome, sexy stars (with luminous Katherine Ross for the gentlemen) and give it a retro-adventure gloss: instant blockbuster. Critics hated it, audiences disagreed.
It's nicely quirky until they kill six bandits in South America, then turns a bit sad. We have foreshadowing that all will not turn out well:
The friendly sheriff predicting they will die bloody: "You just get to choose where".
Etta Place saying she won't watch them die...
...and then going home before them.
The stars do some of their own stunts: Paul Newman on a bicycle and Robert Redford on top of a train.
In retrospect: "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" seems like a astonishingly bad song for this, but it won an Academy Award!
Would they do this today? Redford seduces Ross at gunpoint. It's a bit of comical role-play but we don't know that at first
Edith Head costumes, Conrad L. Hall cinematography.
Available on Blu-ray. The image seems soft, but I suspect that was the filming technique, meant to give a romantic antique look. The black levels are not very good. Edited commentary track.
