Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969
I must have caught this movie on TV in the last 10 years or so because even though I bought the Blu-ray over a year ago, it seemed pretty familiar (got it from Netflix in 2006). Not long ago I got the Criterion edition of The Princess Bride and saw that the writer of this movie also wrote that one, one of my favorites. Watching some of the documentaries on this movie, Darryl Zanuck of Fox says they paid $400,000 to Goldman for the screenplay, twice as much as they were authorized to pay and had to be one of the highest amounts paid for a screenplay.Goldman says that what drew him to it was the unusual story of two bandits who actually left the country and started all over again somewhere else. Also in the documentary they talk about this being the last Western, which of course isn’t true because they are still making Westerns now, though maybe this marked the end of the action Western in favor of a more character driven story.
As a movie, it is a little slow without a typical plotline, which is maybe appropriate since it generally follows actual events as far as they are known. They said critics weren’t bowled over by the movie, but it did well with audiences and did well on word of mouth. Certainly the main cast is very appealing. Paul Newman was the big name, but Robert Redford cemented his career with the role, and Katherine Ross looked just as great as she did in The Graduate, just the epitome of beauty in that era. The setting is also great, a highlight reel of the most beautiful places in the American West. The characters are also good and have great chemistry (Zanuck says it was the first buddy movie, though there have been an awful lot of duos in movie history). It isn’t generally laugh out loud funny but has a good sense of humor right up to the end. So I can see why it is remembered as a great movie, but I think the narrative lets it down a little, even though it is nice to see something different. And some aspects are a little clunky, like some of the music. Other than it still feels like a pretty modern movie.
Written: 11 Aug 2019
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital