#54: BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

4

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, once, fairly recently

BEST SEQUENCE

Final shootout

BEST LINE

Butch: "Kid, there's something I think I oughta tell ya. I never shot anybody before

Sundance: "One hell of a time to tell me"

- spoken at a time when Sundance would really prefer it if Butch could shoot a few guys alongside him

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

89%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"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."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"In 1890s Wyoming, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid lead a band of outlaws. When a train robbery goes wrong, they find themselves on the run with a posse hard on their heels.."

DIRECTOR

George Roy Hill

MAIN CAST

Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Strother Martin

THOUGHTS

• The script is charming even if it's not always laugh-out-loud funny, and Newman and Redford have great chemistry and charisma coming out of their ears, and the scenery and cinematography are pretty fantastic, but it's really not all that thrilling
• Getting back to the script, it was one of the first written by William Goldman, and it won him his first Academy Award (his second award would be for the previously discussed All the President's Men). Some have said that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid set the template for the buddy action comedies that we all know and love, and I can definitely see its impact on future movies, but I don't know, it leans a little heavier on the comedy than the action for me. A lot of wisecracks, and a lot of them land fairly well, but they can also distract from the thrills and the action. And in fact, not only did I find it not terribly thrilling, I even found it a little boring (and I remember feeling the same way the first time I watched it not too long ago)
• Also distracting, Burt Bacharach's music. "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" was a huge hit at the time, sung by B. J. Thomas and written by Bacharach, and it won the Oscar for Best Original Song, and I can't stand it. In the movie it plays while Paul Newman performs some stunts on a bicycle, and I just think the whole thing is annoying. There's also a late-movie bank robbing montage that's scored with a vocal jazz group that I found pretty jarring
• Like I said, I did love the scenery and cinematography, though, a common opinion I've had with Westerns, and I also liked the way that they filmed the posse of bad guys chasing Butch and Sundance. Always way off in the distance, never seeing their faces close up, just anonymously threatening entities
• Sometimes I watch a movie that I like and I worry that I'm just being influenced by other peoples' opinions, but then I watch a movie like this, pretty universally loved and admired, and it just doesn't do it for me. Worth mentioning, though, I'm in good company. Both Siskel and Ebert were pretty unimpressed with this movie, quite early in each of their careers, and before they even started their professional partnership
• Finally, George Roy Hill teamed up again with Newman and Redford a few years later for The Sting, another movie I saw once long ago, but in contrast with my memory of watching Butch Cassidy previously, I remember really liking The Sting, and I kinda just wanted to watch that again. So I did. Without further ado...

MINI REVIEW: THE STING (1973)

I think The Sting is superior to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in basically every way, and while they're fairly different genres, I even think The Sting is way more thrilling. Butch Cassidy has a much higher body count, but The Sting has just enough murders to show us the stakes, and there's a constant threat of violence. More importantly, though, without even needing to see bodies fall and guns fire, the real thrill of The Sting comes from the plot - watching the con play out, following the twists and turns, and seeing a real bastard of a guy (intimidatingly played by Robert Shaw) get his due comeuppance. Redford and Newman are just as great, just as charismatic, and I cared more about these characters than I ever did about Butch and Sundance. And lastly, I'll take Scott Joplin's sweet ragtime over Burt Bacharach's treacly noodling any day.

Up next: It's a big one, and Quentin Tarantino's only movie on the official AFI list: 1994's Pulp Fiction