BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)

   Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Katharine Ross, George Roy Hill (director).

   One of the most famous buddy moviesof all time, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a good-hearted comedy based on the historical exploits of these famous members of the Hole in the Wall Gang. The film takes place at the turn of the 20th century as the two outlaws, Butch (Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Redford), realize their days of easy robbing are coming to an end. Etta Place (Ross), a schoolteacher turned outlaw and the Kid’s love interest, makes the group a trio. The film follows them to New York City and eventually to Bolivia, where they plan on renewing their occupation. A classic hit song by B. J. Thomas, “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” came out of the movie. It was played during a scene with Etta, the Kid, and Butch riding a bicycle around in circles in the rain during their happier days. One of the things that made the film so popular and so different in its time was that it took the new kind of cowboy heroes of antimyth Westerns and made them likeable. Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name was a tough antihero, but he was not particularly likeable. Newman and Redford, on the other hand, played outlaws, who were historically ruthless and despicable by any standard, and made them fun-loving buddies always able to make everything into a good time. The outlaws are chased through the Bolivian countryside, and eventually they run up on a sheer cliff with no hope of escape. Their backs are to the edge of the precipice, which drops down to the deep gorge and raging river below. “Jump!” yells Butch. “I can’t swim,” the Kid frantically replies. Butch chuckles, “Hell, the fall will probably kill ya.” They jump.

   As with other Westerns of the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as The Wild Bunch (1969) and The Shootist (1976), this film sought to move the chronological time of the old West into the 20th century. Interestingly, the historical period in which the early action takes place is 1903, the year the first film Western, The Great Train Robbery, was made.

   See also END-OF-THE-WEST FILMS.