Review of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) by Josh S — 27 Apr 2009

SCREENED AT THE 52ND SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: [i]Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[/i].

Directed by George Roy Hill ([i]The World According to Garp[/i], [i]The Sting[/i], [i]Slaughterhouse-Five[/i], [i]Thoroughly Modern Millie[/i]).

Written by William Goldman ([i]The Ghost and the Darkness[/i], [i]The Princess Bride[/i], [i]Magic[/i], [i]A Bridge Too Far[/i], [i]Marathon Man[/i], [i]All the President's Men[/i]).

Release Date: 24 October 1969.

Tagline: Just for the fun of it!

Plot: Two Western bank/train robbers flee to Bolivia when the law gets too close.

Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman).

The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford).

Etta Place (Katharine Ross).

Percy Garris (Strother Martin).

Bike Salesman (Henry Jones).

Sheriff Bledsoe (Jeff Corey).

Woodcock (George Furth).

Agnes (Cloris Leachman).

Harvey Logan (Ted Cassidy).

Marshal (Kenneth Mars).

Macon (Donnelly Rhodes).

Large Woman Train Passenger (Jody Gilbert).

News Carver (Timothy Scott).

Fireman (Don Keefer).

Flat Nose Curry (Charles Dierkop).

Every close call brings them inevitably closer to their respective ends in Bolivia.

Although Paul Newman is no longer with us, but Robert Redford still is. While Redford has retired from acting, he still directs on occasion and, of course, runs the Sundance Institute, the sponsor of the Sundance International Film Festival every January, the owner of the Sundance theater chain. Redford runs the Sundance Institute from of Park City, Utah, where he lives year-round.

True the late sixties milieu, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian, counter-culture, golden boy outlaws.

There?s nothing revolutionary or ground-breaking about [i]Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[/i], just two movie stars at the peak of their careers thoroughly enjoying each other?s company as they play act their way through a romanticized, idealized scenario involving two notorious outlaws.

There?s heterosexual romance in [i]Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[/i], but it?s marginal, almost tangential, a subplot to answer potential questions about Butch and the Sundance Kid. They might be the most clean-cut, handsome outlaws ever put on celluloid, but their close friendship is never meant to be anything more than platonic.

To borrow a phrase repeatedly used in describing George Clooney and Brad Pitt?s successful careers as movie stars (as opposed to actors), Newman and Redford?s star power, magnified by sharing time onscreen, turned on a simple proposition: women wanted to sleep with them and men simply wanted to be them. Whatever their offscreen relationship, onscreen they shared an easy rapport, an easy chemistry that couldn?t (and can?t) be manufactured.

Burt Bacharach provided the anachronistic score (Hal David provided lyrics). Bacharach also wrote the music to the egregiously maudlin, if no less catchy, ?Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.?

[i]Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[/i] was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning for Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall), Original Score, and Best Song (?Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head?). William Goldman also won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay. Six years ago, the Library selected [i]Butch Cassidy and the , the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as ?culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.?