Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid And The Birth Of The Buddy Movie
"Boy, I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals."
In 1969, two movies were released about the infamous Hole-In-The-Wall Gang: Sam Peckinpah’s the Wild Bunch and George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Given their shared subject matter, it was no surprise that the films had many things in common: the lamenting of a lost age, fine action sequences, ace turns from legendary character actor Strother Martin. But while Peckinpah’s picture played as straight, blood-spattered drama, Hill’s film contained things not often seen in cinema westerns. Like playful banter. And bicycles. And a sequence in which said bicycle is ridden around while some blokes bangs on about raindrops and how they keep falling on, of all places, his head.
It wasn’t so much Butch And Sundance’s celebration of male bonding that made it unusual - after all, pardners had been a part of westerns as long as Stetsons and six-shooters. The quantum leap was that no one had ever pulled off this act with so much style. Previously, two men who hung around together were cool, laconic co-riders, but Butch and Sundance were buddies - and the blend of wise-ass humour, high jinks and gunplay was the film’s crowning achievement.
Of course, much of the film’s greatness stems from William Goldman’s Oscar-winning screenplay. While Peckinpah’s picture changed the names of the legendary bandits, Goldman sticks to the facts. Okay, so he doesn’t make anything of the fact that Butch’s family hailed from Blackpool and the real Robert LeRoy Parker spoke with a Lancashire accent. And neither does he dwell on how no one really knows where the dynamic duo wound up being buried.
But why let historical accuracy get in the way of scenes like Cassidy trying to hold-up a Bolivian bank with a phrase book - “This is a stick-up! ‘Este es un robo!’” And why have Butch mumble in a unfamiliar dialect when you can have him laying down lines like, “I don’t mean to be a sore loser, but when it’s done, if I’m dead, kill him”?
Goldman’s delicious dialogue sits astride a superbly streamlined story. As the Hole-In-Wall Gang’s leaders, Butch and Sundance are among the most wanted men in America. Hunted across the wilderness by legendary Indian tracker Lord Baltimore, the boys, together with Sundance’s girlfriend Etta Place (The Graduate’s Katherine Ross), decamp to South America where they see a way to continue their felonious activities beyond the reach of the US government but, alas, within the grasp of the entire Bolivian army.
The cinematic journey from the high chaparral to their final moments in La Paz effortlessly blends Western conventions with more fanciful material. Of the new stuff, the sepia photograph montages work a damn sight better than that Bacharach and David number. As for the routine material, it doesn’t come across as such since Hill’s handling is so expert - the pursuit across the desert doesn’t slacken for a second. The stunts are good, too. In fact the famous leap into the river has been copied so many times now, it almost looks clichéd.
The shoot-outs, though, still feels very fresh. This is partially down to there being lots of gunplay but little actual blood spilt - our heroes would rather kick people in the balls than blow them away with the casual tug of a trigger. And no matter how spectacular the action, it never detracts from the relationship between Newman (originally cast as Sundance) and Redford (who only got the part of the Kid after Warren Beatty turned it down). And while the shoot-outs are fun, the real zingers here are to be found in the dialogue exchanges. Butch asks Sundance, “Is that what you call giving cover?” “Is that what you call running?” the Kid replies.
With Butch Cassidy winning a hatful of Academy Awards and favourable reviews the world over, Hill, Newman and Redford would reteam four years later to make The Sting. Playing upon the stars’ on-screen rapport, the film delivered financially and secured four further Oscars. Well-crafted as it was, there was nevertheless a distinct feeling that Hill had failed to rescale heights previously conquered.
And all these years on, the mountain still hasn’t be scaled again. Because it doesn’t matter how often Hollywood reheats the buddy movie or whichever odd couple the execs throw together, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid will remain like a dog-shot covered Cornetto - pretty damn hard to lick.