 Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross
Director: George Roy Hill
Year Of Release: 1969
Plot: Butch and Sundance are the leaders of the outlaw Hole In The Wall Gang, with Butch providing the brains and Sundance the skill behind the criminal enterprise. After robbing the same train one too many times, a posse of the best lawmen in the land is put together to bring them down. When they realise they won’t escape these determined people, Butch and Sundance decide to head for Bolivia, along with Sundance’s girlfriend, Etta Place. However even in South America they may not be able to stay out of trouble. |
Of all the classic Westerns, Butch Cassidy is one of the few that’s just flat out fun. It’s humorous, entertaining, showcases some great filmmaking and is a great ride. While on the ‘making of...’ documentary on the Special Edition DVD, the late great Paul Newman talks about how he doesn’t think the film had any lasting impact on cinema, I don’t think he’s right.
Well, he’s correct that it didn’t have a massive impact on the western, as 1969, the year the film came out, was the last great year for genre, with not only Butch and Sundance, but also films like The Wild Bunch being released. However while these films may not have saved the western, they did point the way forward. On its release, many critics noted the influence of the French New Wave on Butch and Sundance, and dismissed the film because they felt it was a bit of a juvenile travesty compared to the likes of Truffaut.
However it pointed the way forward, as it was one of the first movies to take modern filmmaking ideas from the likes of the New Wave, which went beyond the classic Hollywood style, and adapted them to a movie that was a slice of sheer entertainment, rather than some sort of cultural statement (as Bonnie & Clyde had been). As a result it felt fresh and new, and was absolutely lapped up by audiences, becoming the highest grossing film of the year. Despite the rather muted and snooty response from the critics, the film went on to win four Oscar, for Best Screenplay, Best Song (for Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head), Best Score and Best Cinematography, as well as picking up nominations for Best Director, Best Picture and Best Sound. In fact, it was so well received in Britain that it won nine BAFTAs, including Best Film, which is still a record.
In many ways it was the prototype for the modern blockbuster, before such a thing existed. It was a movie that took fresh, modern filmmaking ideas and visual style and adapted them to populist entertainment. This turning of the Avant Garde into the mainstream was refined through the 70s with films like The Godfather, before Jaws and Star Wars rewrote the rulebook, broke box office records and set in motion the world of summer blockbusters that we live in today. While it wouldn’t be right to call Butch and Sundance the first blockbuster, it was certainly one of the films that helped change Hollywood forever and showed the way forward.
The film has also been noted for setting the template for the modern buddy comedy, with Butch and Sundance’s bickering but good-hearted friendship still the model that screenwriters look to when they’re putting together films about two men on mission.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has also had a very long legacy. Indeed, before the movie the legend of the outlaws wasn’t that well known. While they were famous in their heyday, their exploits had largely been forgotten until William Goldman dug up their tale and turned it into a screenplay that sold for the then record sum of $400,000. Since the movie, Butch and Sundance have of course become as famous as the likes of Jesse James and Wyatt Earp.
The film also established the legendary screen partnership of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, although it should be noted that when the film was made, Redford wasn’t much of a star. In fact the screenplay was originally called The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy, with the names being swapped around because Newman as Butch was much the bigger name and so it was felt his character ought to go first. However the movie launched Redford onto the a-list and made him a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood.
While we now look at Redford and Newman as a classic screen duo due to their wonderful chemistry, they actually only made one more movie together after Butch and Sundance. Thankfully their other collaboration was also a corker – the multi-Oscar winning The Sting. Although they often talked about working together again, with reports only a few years ago that Newman wanted to make his final film with his pal Redford, the Hollywood legend was forced to retire and then died before that could happen.
Butch and Sundance also spawned three sequels, one in cinemas and two on TV. The two TV movies were both about Sundance’s girlfriend, Etta Place, with 1974’s Mrs. Sundance seeing Bewitched’s Elizabeth Montgomery taking the leading role, with Etta trying to deal with the fact that after returning to America, there’s still a huge bounty on her head. 1976’s Wanted: The Sundance Woman, saw the original screen Etta, Katharine Ross, back in the role, this time joining up with Pancho Villa. Neither movie was very good, perhaps because while Butch and Sundance was loosely based on fact, nothing is known about what happened to Etta after her exploits with the outlaws, and so the sequels were complete fabrications, and not very imaginative ones at that.
Then, in 1979, came a theatrical prequel, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, starring William Katt and Tom Berenger. As the name suggest, it covers the outlaws’ lives before the events of the classic film, but again it wasn’t very good and has largely been forgotten.
If that weren’t enough, there are now plans for a movie based on the legend that Butch Cassidy didn’t die in Bolivia in 1908 as the film suggested (largely based on his sister’s claims that Butch eventually same back to the US, although that’s never been substantiated, and most historians believe he did indeed meet his end in a shootout in South America). Although not officially a sequel to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – it’s been described as a reprise of the legend – Sam Shepard has been lined up to play a middle-aged Cassidy, who’s planning to return to America to retire. However a trigger-happy cowboy (Eduardo Noriega) loses the outlaw's life savings, which forces Butch into one big final job, a mine heist. Also starring is Steven Rea, as a railroad employee who's still trying to track Cassidy down to kill him. The Spanish backed movie is due to start filming this Spring.
Outside the movie itself, Butch and Sundance’s legacy lives on through organisations stars Redford and Newman set up. It just shows what an important movie it must have been for the actors that they both named some of most important things to them (outside acting) after the film. Of course Redford founded the Sundance Film Festival, named after his character in the movie, which has grown into the most important launching ground for independent movies on the planet. He also called his ski resort in Utah, Sundance.
Newman meanwhile founded a residential summer camp and year-round centre in Connecticut in 1988, serving children and their families coping with cancer and other serious illnesses and conditions. He called it the Hole In The Wall Gang Camp, after the group of outlaws the main characters are part of at the beginning of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Since its launch the charity has expanded massively, doing outreach to hospitals, as well as helping to set up further Hole In The Wall camps in other parts of the US and overseas (there are now 11 camps that are part of the Hole In The Wall Gang Camps Association). It’s believed that overall over 135,000 children with all sorts of illnesses and problems have attended one of the camps, with thousands more benefitting from its outreach programmes.
Interestingly, much of the funding for the Hole In Wall Gang Camps (and all of the start-up cash) comes from the profits generated by Newman’s range of salad dressings and snacks, Newman’s Own. Indeed, if you’ve ever wondered why you the superstar actor ever agreed to have his face plastered over vinaigrettes and pasta sauces in supermarkets around the world, it’s because every single penny of profit Newman’s Own has ever made has been donated to all sorts of charities and causes, amounting to over $280 million since 1982.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid really is a great movie, and it now has a legacy ranging from a major film festival to a wonderful charitable foundation, as well as helping to set the modern blockbuster in motion. It’s very impressive for a film that was greeted with middling reviews and which no one could ever have suspected would become lauded as one of Hollywood’s best ever movies, getting included on six of the AFI’s ‘100 Years...’ lists, including both their tallies of the 100 greatest American movies ever.
TIM ISAAC
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