Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) or, Friendly Outlaws

12/09/2013

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) or, Friendly Outlaws

♥♥♥♥

Paul Newman and Robert Redford posing in retro-country graphics on a poster for George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

QUICK REVIEW:

Two American crime-legends robbed banks and trains in the Wild West, until they decided to flee to Bolivia with a woman. SPOILER And here they both got shot.
Cassidy and Kid is in my eyes a charming, and very early, buddy movie. To me, its western, romance and true events depiction seem secondary to its being a buddy movie. Taken as such, it is entertaining, funny and exciting, but also banal, (as many buddy movies are), because it isn't really about anything.
But the film is good fun, in big measures thanks to its title stars, Paul Newman (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)) and Robert Redford (All Is Lost (2013)), who build his career on it. From this point in western history, however, I do prefer other films like A Fistful of Dynamite (1971) and The Wild Bunch (1969).
Seen out of its historic context, today, Cassidy and Kid is a strange film. The 60s were a very different time. The film was immensely popular in America, and even won 4 Oscars, one of them for Hal David and Burt Bacharach's now classic song Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head. The film even holds # 148 on IMDb's top 250, and is thereby truly overrated. It is good, but a far cry from great.
Director George Roy Hill later made the similarly wildly popular The Sting (1973), for which he also won the Best Director Oscar.

Related review:

Giù la Testa/A Fistful of Dynamite/Duck, You Sucker! (1971) or, Sergio Leone's Cinematic Cornucopia

Watch some of the fun of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in its trailer here

Budget: 6.8 mil. $
Box office: 102.3 mil. $ (US only)
= Blockbuster

What do you think of this 'classic'?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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12/09/2013

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) or, Friendly Outlaws

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