Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western 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 in search of a more successful criminal career.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Theatrical release poster by Tom Beauvais
Directed byGeorge Roy Hill
Produced byJohn Foreman
Written byWilliam Goldman
Starring
Music byBurt Bacharach
CinematographyConrad Hall
Edited by
Production
company
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • September 23, 1969 (1969-09-23) (Premiere)
  • September 24, 1969 (1969-09-24) (New York City)
[1]
Running time
110 minutes[2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$6 million[3]
Box office$102.3 million (North America)[4]

In 2003, the film was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." 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. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were ranked 20th greatest heroes on "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and 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

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 (Wyoming) to discover that the rest of the gang, irked at Butch's long absences, have selected Harvey Logan as their new leader.

Harvey challenges Butch to a knife fight over the gang's leadership. Butch defeats him using trickery, but embraces Harvey's idea to rob the Union Pacific Overland Flyer train on both its eastward and westward runs, agreeing that the second robbery would be unexpected and likely reap even more money than the first.

The first robbery goes well. To celebrate, Butch visits a favorite brothel in a nearby town and watches, amused, as 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 (he calls it "the future"). Sundance visits his lover, schoolteacher Etta Place and they spend the night together. Butch joins up with them early the next morning, and takes Etta for a ride on his new bike.

On the second train robbery, Butch uses too much dynamite to blow open the safe, which is much larger than the safe on the previous job. The explosion demolishes the baggage car in the process. As the gang scrambles to gather up the money, a second train arrives carrying a six-man team of lawmen. The crack squad doggedly pursues Butch and Sundance, who try various ruses to get away, all of which fail. They try to hide out in the brothel, and then to seek amnesty from the friendly Sheriff Bledsoe, but he tells them their days are numbered and all they can do is flee.

As the posse remains in pursuit, despite all attempts to elude them, Butch and Sundance determine that the group includes renowned Indian tracker "Lord Baltimore" and relentless lawman Joe Lefors, recognizable by his white skimmer. Butch and Sundance finally elude their pursuers by jumping from a cliff into a river far below. They learn from Etta that the posse has been paid by Union Pacific head E. H. Harriman to remain on their trail until Butch and Sundance are both killed.

Butch convinces Sundance and Etta that the three should go to Bolivia, which Butch envisions as a robber's paradise. On their arrival there, Sundance is dismayed by the living conditions and regards the country with contempt, but Butch remains optimistic. They discover that they know too little Spanish to pull off a bank robbery, so Etta attempts to teach them the language. With her as an accomplice, they become successful bank robbers known as Los Bandidos Yanquis. However, their confidence drops when they see a man wearing a white hat (the signature of determined lawman Lefors) and fear that Harriman's posse is still after them.

Butch 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. Butch and Sundance kill the bandits, the first time Butch has ever shot someone. Etta recommends farming or ranching as other lines of work, but they conclude the straight life isn't for them. Sensing they will be killed should they return to robbery, Etta decides to go back to the United States.

Butch and Sundance steal a payroll and the mules carrying it, and arrive in a small town. A boy recognizes the mules' brand and alerts the local police, leading to a gunfight with the outlaws. They take cover in a building but are both seriously wounded, and Butch has to make a desperate run to the mules to get ammunition, while Sundance provides covering fire for his dash. As dozens of Bolivian soldiers surround the area, Butch suggests the duo's next destination should be Australia. They charge out of the building, guns blazing, directly into a firing squad.

Cast

Production

Screenplay

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.[5] 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.[6] 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 Longbaugh 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.[6]

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.[7]

Development

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."[8]

Goldman rewrote the script, "didn't change it more than a few pages, and subsequently found that every studio wanted it."[8]

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.[9] 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.

Release

Premieres

The world premiere of the movie 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.[10] It opened the next day in New York City[1] at the Penthouse and Sutton theatres.[11]

Home media

Reception

Box office

The film grossed $82,625 in its opening week from two theatres in New York City.[11] It went on to earn $15 million in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada by the end of 1969.[12] According to Fox records the film required $13,850,000 in rentals to break even and by 11 December 1970 had made $36,825,000 so made a considerable profit to the studio.[13] It eventually returned $45,953,000 in rentals.[14]

With a final US gross of over $100 million,[15] it was the top-grossing film released in 1969. Adjusted for inflation, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ranks as the 34th top-grossing film of all time and in the top 10 for its decade, due in part to subsequent re-releases.

It was the eighth most popular film of 1970 in France.[16]

Critical response

Early reviews gave the film mediocre grades, and New York and national reviews were "mixed to terrible" though better elsewhere, screenwriter William Goldman recalled in his book Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade.[17]

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."[18] Time also criticized the film's score as absurd and anachronistic.

Roger Ebert's review of the movie was a mixed 2.5 out of 4 stars. "The movie starts promisingly ... a scene where Butch puts down a rebellion in his gang [is] one of the best things in the movie ... And then we meet Sundance's girlfriend, played by Katharine Ross, and the scenes with the three of them have you thinking you've wandered into a really first-rate film." But after Harriman hires his posse, Ebert thought the movie's 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." The dialogue in the final scenes is "so bad we can't believe a word anyone says. And then the violent, bloody ending is also a mistake; apparently it was a misguided attempt to copy "Bonnie and Clyde. ..." we don't believe it, and we walk out of the theater wondering what happened to that great movie we were seeing until an hour ago."[19]

The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #11 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.[20]

Over time, major American movie reviewers have been widely favorable. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 90% "certified fresh" favorable score, based on 50 reviews, with an average score of 8.28/10. 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."[21]

Newman and Redford's chemistry was praised as was the film's charm and humor.

Awards and nominations

The film won four Academy Awards: Best Cinematography; Best Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical); Best Music, Song (Burt Bacharach and Hal David for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head"); and Best Original Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Sound (William Edmondson and David Dockendorf).[22]

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid also won numerous British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Actor (won by Redford though Newman was also nominated), and Best Actress for Katharine Ross, among others.[23]

William Goldman won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay.[24]

In 2003, the film was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The Academy Film Archive preserved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1998.[25]

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.

Award Category Recipient/Nominee Result
Academy Awards Best Picture John Foreman Nominated
Best Director George Roy Hill Nominated
Best Original Screenplay William Goldman Won
Best Cinematography Conrad Hall Won
Best Original Score Burt Bacharach Won
Best Original Song Burt Bacharach and Hal David Won
Best Sound Mixing David Dockendorf and William Edmondson Nominated
British Academy Film Awards Best Film George Roy Hill Won
Best Direction George Roy Hill Won
Best Actor in a Leading Role Robert Redford Won
Paul Newman Nominated
Best Actress in a Leading Role Katharine Ross Won
Best Screenplay William Goldman Won
Best Cinematography Conrad Hall Won
Best Editing John C. Howard and Richard C. Meyer Won
Best Original Music Burt Bacharach Won
Best Sound David Dockendorf and William Edmondson Won
Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture – Drama John Foreman Nominated
Best Screenplay William Goldman Nominated
Best Original Score Burt Bacharach Nominated
Best Original Song Burt Bacharach and Hal David Nominated

Legacy

The film inspired the television series Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy as outlaws trying to earn an amnesty.[26]

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.[27]

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.

gollark: I don't think that attacked any actual crypto.
gollark: As far as I know all the actual cryptographic primitives in TLS are sound, or haven't been found to not be publicly.
gollark: What?
gollark: I agree.
gollark: Also, just block all ads ever.

See also

References
  1. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the American Film Institute Catalog
  2. "BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved December 15, 2014.
  3. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – Box Office Data, DVD and Blu-ray Sales, Movie News, Cast and Crew Information". The Numbers. Retrieved December 15, 2014.
  4. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 26, 2012.
  5. Goldman, William (1982). Adventures in the Screen Trade. pp. 191–200.
  6. Egan, p. 90
  7. Nixon, Rob. "The Big Idea – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Turner Classic Movies, Inc. Retrieved February 26, 2017.
  8. Egan, p. 91
  9. Flynn, Bob (August 15, 1998). "A slice of Lemmon for extra character". The Canberra Time. Panorama. p. 7.
  10. Tiffany Woo (October 26, 2009). "'Butch Cassidy' returns after 40 years". Yale Daily News. Archived from the original on October 2, 2012. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
  11. "Pennant Fever Sloughs B'Way Biz; Newies 'Goose,' 'Nut,' 'Mind' Falter; 'Tree' Big 175G, 'Cassidy' $68,608". Variety. October 8, 1969. p. 9.
  12. "Big Rental Films of 1969". Variety. January 7, 1970. p. 15.
  13. Silverman, Stephen M (1988). The Fox that got away : the last days of the Zanuck dynasty at Twentieth Century-Fox. L. Stuart. p. 328.
  14. "All-Time Top Film Rentals". Variety. October 7, 1999. Archived from the original on October 7, 1999. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
  15. "Domestic Grosses Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 9, 2009.
  16. "1970 Box Office in France". Box Office Story.
  17. Goldman, William (2000). Which lie did I tell?, or, More adventures in the screen trade (1st ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-375-40349-3.
  18. "Double Vision". Time. September 26, 1969. Retrieved February 9, 2009.
  19. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Chicago Sun-Times. October 13, 1969.
  20. Savage, Sophia (February 27, 2013). "WGA Lists Greatest Screenplays, From 'Casablanca' and 'Godfather' to 'Memento' and 'Notorious'". Archived from the original on August 13, 2006. Retrieved February 28, 2013.
  21. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
  22. "The 42nd Academy Awards (1970) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
  23. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Awards". IMDB. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
  24. "William Goldman – Awards & Nominations". awardsandwinners.com.
  25. "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.
  26. "Alias Smith and Jones". Archived from the original on December 31, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
  27. MAD #136 July 1970 at MAD cover site.

Bibliography
  • Egan, Sean (2014). William Goldman: The Reluctant Storyteller. Bear Manor Media.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.