This month, Old Academy Anew goes to the Wild West with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (BC&TSK going forward). Hailing from a realm of cinematography hitherto unexplored by this column, this one has been rounding me for a while. With two extremely well-known leads, an intriguing premise, and its hold in our collective consciousness, it was about time.
From left to right is Harry A. Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid, Ben Kilpatrick, alias the Tall Texan, Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy; Standing Will Carver, alias News Carver, & Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1900
WEST AUDIENCES
When you hear the word “western” certain things come immediately to mind: horses, trains, guns, swashbuckling adventures… Wait. Am I mixing genres here? Well, even if we unflinchingly associate the idea of swashbuckling with oceanic endeavors, the concept has no territorial limits. The word means daring and romantic adventure; or engaging in daring and romantic adventures with bravado or flamboyance. Wouldn’t you need bravado to engage a fellow in a duel at high noon? Therefore, the whole idea of “going west” inferred a set of brass cojones at minimum.
BC&TSK OPENS USING A SEPIA REEL ENTITLED THE HOLE IN THE WALL GANG IN THE STYLE OF OLD SILENT MOVIES. “THE HOLE IN THE WALL GANG, LED BY BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, ARE ALL DEAD NOW… BUT ONCE THEY RULED THE WEST.” PIANO SINGLE NOTES ACCOMPANY THE OPENING CREDITS AS THE BANDITS ROB A TRAIN.
The train job fails, with several members of the group dying on the spot. As three men escape, the reel ends. A caption rises from the black: MOST OF WHAT FOLLOWS IS TRUE. Way better than “BASED ON TRUE EVENTS” if you ask me. Interestingly, those in the reel are meant to represent the people in the movie— not the same but intentional look-alikes. The signs are all there from the get-go.
A close-up shot of a barred window emerges— still in sepia; it fades to give us a first look at Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman). Those striking eyes study something we can’t see. He leaves his perch and walks, taking in the features of a building until he enters it. By the things he notices, we realize it isn’t only a bank but his next target. The place is closing for the day, and they unceremoniously keep shutting things down in his face. His first words in the movie are, “What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful.” The guard, waiting for him to exit, retorts, “People kept robbing it.”
“Small price for beauty,” Butch comments as he turns to leave. The guard slams the door close, and we’re done with the bank.
Sundance (Robert Redford) is having a game of cards with a group of men. He’s winning; they aren’t happy about it. The aforementioned set of west-territorial cojones pushes the last man standing in the game to be rude to Sundance. When things are a second from getting hairy, Butch appears. “Well, we seem to be short on brotherly love around here,” he offers casually, taking his place beside Sundance.
OUR PROTAGONISTS NEED TO LEAVE THE MONEY AND GO, BUT SUNDANCE IS HAVING NONE OF THAT. HE STATES HE’LL ONLY LEAVE IF RUDE DUDE ASKS THEM TO STAY. BUTCH TRIES TO DE-ESCALATE THE SITUATION BY ASKING DUDE TO SAY THE WORDS EVEN IF THEY DON’T MEAN ANYTHING. REFUSAL IS ALL HE GETS FOR HIS EFFORT, SO HE TURNS TO HIS PARTNER AND SAYS, “I CAN’T HELP YOU, SUNDANCE.” BC&TSK EXPERTLY SHOWS US THE IMPLOSION OF COJONES AS THE MAN REALIZES WHO HE’S DEALING WITH.
Short of browning his pants, Rude Dude finally utters the words. Butch politely declines and then proceeds to collect the winnings in his hat as Sundance walks toward the doors. Whether to save face or because a particle of cojones has remained after the implosion, Rude Dude gets smart. Sundance ignores him, until the dude says, “Hey, Kid. How good are you?”
It takes only a fraction of a heartbeat for Butch to jump out of the way. Sundance swirls. Shots are fired. He doesn’t kill the man but divests him of his belt and gun with two shots. The fallen gun gets further away from its owner with each subsequent bullet. Butch and Sundance exit the joint. The sepia tones recede, embracing bright colors, as their horses trot away.
EAST AUDIENCES
Butch and Sundance traverse mountains and copses of trees to meet with their gang. We’re ten minutes into the movie and the concept of Bolivia arrives as a place to escape the tedium and dangers of that arid land. Sundance asks, “What’s Bolivia?” We can hear the eye roll in Butch’s voice as he answers, “That’s a country, stupid. In Central or South America, one or the other.” Unfazed, Sundance brings Mexico as an option. “All they got in Mexico is sweat. There’s too much of that here.” Butch explains that if they’d been in business during the Gold Rush, the place to be was California. He equates Bolivia to California during their particular time period as the place to be.
THE THING I ENJOY THE MOST ABOUT BC&TSK IS ITS ABILITY TO GIVE INFORMATION WITHOUT TURNING IT INTO AN INFO DUMP. WE ARE LEARNING THINGS ABOUT THESE MEN: WHO’S THE BRAINS; WHO’S THE MUSCLE; THE BALANCE OF POWER BETWEEN THEM.
At the end of their little skimming conversation, Butch says something that hits me deeply. “Boy, I got the vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.”
They reach the crew and see the men getting ready to mount. The group is fixing to hit a train. Butch had instructed them to engage that one on its way back not out. He appeals to their common sense, saying that banks are better than trains. “They don’t move, and you know the money is there.”
The thing is, this ain’t just the men disregarding Butch’s orders; there’s an ousting in progress here. Butch needs to choose between guns or knives to face the situation. The challenger also orders Sundance to stay out of it. Knives it is, and Butch goes to Sundance (still on his horse) to give his own instructions to his partner.
The not-duel has an Indi versus the swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) vibe to it. It’s fukken hilarious. Two completely different things happen in each movie, but I assure you Spielberg and/or Lucas were inspired by Butch’s actions.
Butch quenched the coup, but when the men explain the challenger’s plan, he decides to go with it. Off they go to hit the train both ways. Yeah. I realize how that sounds, but I’m gonna leave it.
They stop the train, blow up the safe and get out; it’s not a big bounty, but it’s enough money to have a good time with the ladies that night. Perched on the whorehouse balcony, Butch and Sundance amusedly watch as the marshal tries to rouse the townsfolk. Alas, no one wants to risk their life going after the formidable bandits.
BC&TSD CHOOSES THIS MOMENT TO LET US KNOW OUR PROTAGONISTS HAVE EACH OTHER’S BACKS BUT ARE THE KIND OF MEN WHO DON’T NEED BACKSTORIES OR EVEN REAL NAMES TO FORGE AN UNBREAKABLE BOND.
Butch is about to get busy. “Well, I think I’ll get saddle up and go looking for a woman,” Sundance elaborates on his own entertainment. “Good huntin’,” Butch encourages amid smooches with one of the house ladies. Sundance grabs his gun from the table. “Shouldn’t take more than a couple of days,” he says, donning his hat. “I’m not picky as long as she’s smart, pretty… and sweet… and gentle… and tender…” He lists lovely qualities while exiting the scene.
Next, Etta Place (Katherine Ross), Sundance’s lover, will be introduced in a way that would certainly cause all the keyboard warriors to boycott the film if it came out today.
MODERN AUDIENCES
Shit goes sideways in more than one way, forcing Butch, Sundance, and Etta to escape to Bolivia. The sepia theme reappears for a traveling montage with a jaunty soundtrack; it includes their long stay in New York, Butch and Etta’s marriage, and the ship’s fun while sailing to safety.
Here we stop to ponder the possibilities of making this film in 2023. In this age of exhausting reboots, remakes, prequels, sequels, and exotic iterations of known IPs, I’m surprised this cow hadn’t been chopped for burgers. But when you consider that the people with nostalgia for the Old West are a dying breed, you get why. Yes, studios still make “westerns.” Nonetheless, the highest-grossing movie in that genre is Django Unchained (2012), but it only made $449,841,566.00 and more than half of it came from the international box office.
Right now, most films are about how much money they can make, not about storytelling. The few storytellers left in Tinseltown are drowned in politics and agendas or are so fed up that they don’t care anymore.
FIRST OF ALL, I CAN’T THINK OF ANY CURRENT ACTORS WITH THE PRESENCE OF PAUL NEWMAN AND ROBERT REDFORD TO CARRY A REMAKE OF BC&TSK, AND KNOWING THE KIND OF BS PULLED FOR THE SAKE OF MODERN AUDIENCES, THE EMASCULATION THESE TWO GREATER-THAN-LIFE MEN’S MEN WOULD RECEIVE WILL MAKE NEWMAN RAISE FROM THE GRAVE.
The whole thing will unleash Armageddon with the real Butch Cassidy, Sundance, and the entire Hole in the Wall Gang leading the charge. Now, that’s a movie idea.
There’s also that annoying tendency of some actors of shunning legends’ work, not even bothering to watch their portrayals. They rejoice in having zero clues about what they’ll be measured up against. We have seen this time and time again with the excuse of putting their “own” spin on the characters. That cannot be called shenanigans— just pure arrogance.
I come from a town basically created to host the train to help with California’s Gold Rush; thus, the idea of Bolivia in the film was intriguing. How was that journey? Now imagine that writer’s room today when 90% will be offended on behalf of all South Americans. Sundance doesn’t know what Bolivia is, and Butch couldn’t locate it on a map, the horror. Funny enough, I am positive 75% of that 90% could not find Bolivia on a map either.
The unnecessary Marvel-fying of recent movies with obnoxious quips and the inability to be serious would hinder any meaningful message; plus, we’ll see Etta Place becoming the main character because we can only have girl bosses to undermine the patriarchy. Or go the other way around inserting a love triangle with no reason to exist.
I’m giving Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 8 out of 10. Two gringos robbing banks in Bolivia may make a funny movie, but it’s a fukken stupid idea in real life.
Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid is currently streaming on HBOMax