Customer Reviews

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Widescreen Special Edition)

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I remember seeing this movie at the cinema as a kid (many years ago)and being knocked out by how COOL Redford and Sundance were. You know the scene in Blues Brothers, the doorway of the transient mens refuge and the rocket launcher, and they just get up, brush themsleves off, music resumes and go on as if nothing happened. That cool. And so when they get to the stage of being concerned "who ARE those guys" we have substance for the actions they take afterwards. Now watching this movie on DVD with my kids, they didn't get enraptured as I did at their age. As you might guess, not enough action for their generation - and yet, when there is action, it plays with as much emotion as the best of hollywood today. A tremendous cast delivering a tremendous performance, this will always be one of my favorite movies.

For one when Butch and sundance are being chased up the mountain by the posse Butch mentions Joe LaFors (sp?). I checked a while ago. LaFors really existed as a lawman at the time. But Etta Place (Kathryn Ross)though she really existed was actually not a school teacher. More likely she was a prostitute.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of the best movies (if not the best!!!) I have ever seen. The action, the interplay and the chemistry between the 2 leading stars (Newman, Redford) is like "poetry in motion". The action is non-stop, as well as the comedy, especially of Newman. Even though there is quite a bit of violence throughout the movie, I would recommend that everyone buy the video!!!

Released in 1969, Butch Cassidy And The Sun Dance Kid became a popular hit, a kind of classy Western parody. It has remained very popular to this day. On DVD with special features, including commentary from the director and actors, it's a great treat for fans of the film who remember seeing it back in '69. Directed by George Roy Hill (who would later direct The Sting) and written by William Goldman of The Princess Bride and Stepford Wives fame. It stars Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy, an idealistic, impetuous and daring bad boy whose ambition is to rob banks and make it big in a trail of fortune that extends to South America, specifically Bolivia. Robert Redford plays his sidekick, Sun Dance Kid, who is more realistic and level-headed. This is a Western but at the same time it seems to mock the genre. Butch's character is lively and adventuresome in a blatant way that is not present in Western heroes. The immense use of humor in the film and music that seems inappropriate to a Western makes it a humorous film. I especially laughed at the scenes in which Butch and Sun Dance had trouble translating Spanish into English to get the money they wanted from the hapless villagers. This seemed to come up a number of times and it's especially funny because the Spanish speaking villagers don't quite grasp what is going on.

The music score is a bit unusual. There is no heroic sounding themes or Western ballads. Instead we get music that was popular in 1969, such as "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" both the vocals and the instrumental versions. The jazzy, upbeat and fugue-style madrigal type of group singing in "South American Getaway" (which was used in a car commercial recently) as the heroes escape on horseback is also quite unusual. It's a great film that looks beautiful (shot on location in South America) and has great acting, a great script. Everyone loves this film. It's a movie everyone can agree on. Too bad it did'nt win any awards. It certainly deserved some type of recognition. But 1969 was a very big year and in the wake of modern cinema, Midnight Cowboy won the Best Picture Oscar instead.

Butch and Sundance (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) are two affable outlaws who bear no malice toward anyone although they make their living by robbing trains and banks. They enjoy their freedom and their easy-going camaraderie until they make the mistake of stealing from the wrong man, a powerful millionaire who sets a skilled, relentless group of hired killers on their trail. From then on, death is always in the background, implacable and ever-present. They may escape for a time, but the end is unavoidable.

Newman and Redford have great chemistry. Their timing and the way they play off each other is the main delight of this film. This movie helped redefine the modern Western and issued in a slew of buddy pictures. Watch it to see two Hollywood legends at their finest in a hugely entertaining film.

Perhaps the most common misconception about this film is that it is a western. It's not and those who criticize its "flower power" music or non-western sentiments don't understand what this film is really trying to say.
It's actually, more of an anti-western. First of all, it takes place at the turn of the twentieth century. The old west is dead but our two anti-heroes (Butch and Sundance) haven't figured this out. The movie is full of symbolism indicating the changing times (the bicycle, for example). Butch even muses about adapting to the new era when he briefly talks about the two of them enlisting in the army, actually getting real jobs, and buying a ranch. But he always goes back to his old way of thinking in the end. This is shown symbolically when Butch tosses the bicycle aside. Because of this, he is doomed to die like the old west. Butch and Sundance are in pursuit of the old west at the same time the new era is chasing them (in the form of faceless lawmen always at a distance). They finally end up in Bolivia, a backwards land that seems to suit them. But even there, their fate eventually catches up with them.

How do you ensure somebody's legacy as a hero? In the good old days, you wrote a book. Nowadays, you make a movie - and if you're lucky and it's really, really successful, you can retrospectively even make legends out of dangerous criminals. Not that that always works, of course. But with two great actors with instant chemistry (Paul Newman and Robert Redford), a script (by William Goldman) bursting with one-liners making the audience bowl over laughing every other minute, without once derailing into slapstick, a director's (George Roy Hill's) ingenious use of the occasion to turn a whole genre on its head, and some of the world's most beautiful locations, filmed by an exceptional cinematographer (Conrad Hall) ... you just may pull it off. Case in point: "Butch and Sundance."

While Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker) was known as the Old West's Robin Hood for his charm, masterly planning, avoidance of bloodshed - he really did claim he'd never shot anyone - and his stance for settlers' rights vis-a-vis the wealthy cattle barons, Sundance (Henry Longbaugh) had the reputation of a loner; a fast draw repeatedly in and out of prison before even turning twenty-one. After several of their Wild Bunch/Hole in the Wall Gang associates had seen the short end of the stick in various encounters with the law, Butch and Sundance determined things were getting too hot in the West and, unlike the outlaws who not much earlier had stood it out until the end (Billy the Kid, the James Gang and the O.K. Corral gunfighters), decided to head for South America. With a woman named Etta Place, possibly a teacher as portrayed here or, perhaps more likely, a prostitute, they first spent several years farming in Argentina - both had done cattle work before turning to robbery, although in the form of rustling (stealing unbranded cattle) - but eventually reverted to their more profitable, preferred occupation. Most sources believe they died in a 1909 shootout with the Bolivian military in a town named San Vicente; others, however, claim either or both escaped alive, returned to the States under assumed names and died there (Sundance in Casper, WY in 1957 and Cassidy, according to his sister, in Spokane, WA, in 1937).

While their decision to leave the West instead of duking it out with the law and the mystery surrounding their deaths would already have made for a great movie, director Hill cleverly used the material for a 180-degree-turn on the Western genre. The opening credits roll next to sepia-tinged silent shots depicting a Hole in the Wall Gang train robbery, followed by the bold claim that "most of what follows is true" - which in itself couldn't be further from the truth. What does follow is a wild ride from the Outlaw Trail to Bolivia ... during which our heroes aren't getting rid of their pursuers, no Western music with guitars and harmonicas accompanies them but Burt Bacharach's multiple-award-winning, deliberately anachronistic, upbeat score (plus "Raindrops Are Falling on My Head" during the most romantic scene - raindrops???), a knife fight is settled by a kick in the groin, and a marshal trying to assemble a posse first meets with a lackluster population, neither willing to bring their own horses and guns nor clamoring to be supplied with such by him, and in short order sees his meeting usurped by a bicycle salesman. Add to that Oscar-winning cinematography, repeatedly using black-and-white lighting techniques even after the film's switch to color (e.g. in Sundance's first visit with Etta), reverse lighting to make daytime shots look like nighttime (during several scenes of the pursuit) and sepia-tinted shots for period feeling (besides the opening, also to sum up the trio's stay in New York), a Bolivian bank robbery with a crib sheet containing "specialized vocabulary" that Butch, contrary to initial claims, doesn't know in Spanish, and an immortalizing freeze-frame ending - and you have one heck of an entertaining movie, shot in some of the West's most spectacular settings and in Mexico (as Bolivia's stand-in).

"Butch and Sundance" turned Redford into a megastar - Hill lobbied hard for the then-perceived "playboy"'s casting, and his instincts proved so dead-on that Newman's entourage became worried the movie's expected primary star would be sidelined (a feeling never shared by Newman himself, though, who has been friends with Redford ever since). In a twist worthy of Goldman's Oscar-winning screenplay, fearsome loner Sundance became one of Redford's most popular roles, and his independent film festival's namesake. The movie renewed popular interest in the Outlaw Trail, which Redford himself traveled later, too (chronicled in a fascinating, alas out-of-print book). Its script is littered with memorable one-liners; from both heroes' "Who *are* those guys??" to Butch's comments on the small price to pay for beauty, on Sundance's gun-prowess ("like I've been telling you - over the hill"), on vision, bifocals and Bolivia, on Sundance's asking Etta (Katherine Ross) to accompany them, although if she'll ever "whine or make a nuisance," he'll be "dumping her flat" ("Don't sugarcoat it like that, Kid ... tell her straight!") and his downplaying the final shootout because their archenemy LaForce isn't there; Sundance's "You just keep thinking, Butch," his comments on the secret of his gambling success (prayer), on not being picky about women (followed by a litany of required attributes), on the excessive use of dynamite, and his one weakness ("I can't swim!!"); and finally Strother Martin/mine-owner Percy Garris's deadpan delivery of the Shanghai Rooster song, of "Morons ... I've got morons on my team" and his assertion not to be crazy but merely colorful. The famous freeze-frame ending has repeatedly been cited, both cinematographically (e.g. "Thelma and Louise") and in dialogue (e.g. 1998's "Negotiator"). And although initially almost uniformly panned by critics, the movie won quadruple Oscars and multiple other awards. In true Hollywood fashion, it has made two fearsome outlaws legends forever ... and in the process, also won legendary status itself.

I first saw this film in 1971 in the movie theater when I was a kid. I thought it was great. It's not so great now that I see it as an adult. I think 50% of the problem is the very flower/love/carpenter's like music put in by BJ Thomas with "Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head". Some of the other music throughout the film is very much unbefitting a western. Even though Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns were made in '66 and '67. The music still holds up better than the background music for Butch and Sundance. I would not consider this movie a classic. I think someone could come along and improve upon the theme and make a better film. This film is too much "Hollywood". The film is entertaining, but the music gets in the way. The film has a whole aura of 70's attached to it. Sorry folks.

How often do you hear these words all to describe the same movie? Better yet, how often does it turn out to be true? But "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is all that and more, one of those few wonderful movies that is able to evoke a broad range of honest emotions in its running time of a little less than two hours.

The plot concerns the various picaresque adventures of Butch and Sundance, played to perfection by Paul Newman and Robert Redford. But the plot, what there is of it, is really of secondary importance. What's more important is the film's heartfelt, funny, and heartbreaking tribute to the Old West and the relationship between two nonconformists who wanted to stay there.

William Goldman's script perfectly captures the Old West's coming of age, but it captures another changing era equally well: that of the 1960's. Many have said the film is dated, I don't believe a word of it. It is most certainly a film from its time, capturing the time period's changes, its hope for a better tomorrow, and its more than occasional paranoia. I think the use of a distinctly 1960's style is not only acceptable, it is essential. The film has many of the markings of a traditional western, both in content and in style--the first color sequence showing Butch and Sundance riding back to the Hole in the Wall Gang looks like it could have come from just about any classic western, as do many other scenes throughout the film. But added to these are touches of modern filmmaking--the use of zooming, the three musical montages, etc. The style is a visual representation of the meeting between the old and the new; The Old West becoming The West, no Old involved. For the same reason, many have condemned the Burt Bachrach score; I praise it. I think the score perfectly underlines Butch and Sundance's breath of life in a seemingly decaying world, and is another wonderful example of the marriage between the Wild West and the Tame West. The "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" sequence perfectly and brilliantly establishes the relationship between the three principles, and, even more, it sets the tone for the entire film. Butch and Sundance are waking up from a dream, a dream they prefer to reality. The bicycle sequence is just one of the picture's many brilliant and entertaining stylistic touches that helps to enhance the characters and tone rather than draw away from them. The cinematography is beautiful, from the opening scenes shot brilliantly in sepia tones to the final, heartbreaking freeze-frame with bullets riddling the soundtrack.

In addition to all this, it is fun to watch. These are two real guys we genuinely care about, who we can sympathize with and root for. They are the quintessential likeable underdogs, and words can't describe the acting by Newman and Redford. There are so few movies today that have this classic and stylish sense of fun, few movies that can mix comedy with drama and action with characterization without feeling uneven, and there are so few films currently in theaters that really ENTERTAIN. The movie is melancholy, but it is also full of the joy of life, and is one of those rare movie experiences that leaves you completely uplifted without feeling cheated. There's no emotional manipulation here, because everything rings true with the surprising but inevitable found in great art, and the characters follow their natural, but nonetheless heartbreaking, paths.

Keep thinking, indeed, Butch. It's what your best at.

this is just a fun movie to watch on a rainy after noon or something, watch some gun fights and bank robbing, some horses and old timey pictures and of course oggle some really hot guys who are now as old as my grampa. You're probably thinking 'oh, she doesn't really like this movie she just like the way robert redford's butt looks in those pants etc' well my friend you are sadly mistaken for i genuinly loved this movie. the cinematography and the art dirction was great, the acting was top notch and revolved around characters you actually care about. Brilliant and one of the saddest endings ever