’69: Changing Hybrid Western: times Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid By Johnny D. Boggs By Thomas D. Clagett left, it turned right.” 1969 was a year of change: Richard In the fall of 1969, Butch Cassidy and One studio wanted to buy the script, Nixon’s inauguration … New YorK City’s the Sundance Kid opened to mixed re- Goldman recalled, but only if he re- Stonewall riot … Vietnam … desegrega- views. The Hollywood Reporter declared it wrote it and had Butch and Sundance tion … Woodstock … Apollo 11 …. “a great film.” Chicago Sun critic Roger stand and fight the super posse that Movies – Easy Rider and Midnight Cow- Ebert called it “slow and disappoint- was chasing them instead of running to boy – also changed in the year many his- ing,” adding that it “never gets up the South America. “I said, ‘But they did torians argue sent the Western film into a nerve, by God, to admit it’s a Western.” run to South America,’ and the studio permanent decline. After all, what more Ignoring the critics, audiences filled said, ‘I don’t care. All I Know is, John could be said about the Old West after theaters where it played. It would be Wayne don’t run away.’” Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The nominated for seven Academy Awards, Though Richard D. Zanuck, head of Wild Bunch and once John Wayne had including best picture and best director. 20th Century-Fox Studios, believed that finally won an Oscar (for True Grit)? What made Butch Cassidy and the “the traditional Western was some- “In many ways these three Westerns Sundance Kid significant to the West- thing you didn’t play around with,” he seemed liKe a death rattle to the genre,” ern genre and to 1969, (arguably the says Bob Boze Bell, executive editor at last milestone year for Western films), True West magazine and the artist who did was that it was and wasn’t a traditional the cover illustration, Butch and Sundance Western. The story of two real-life Ride into Hell, for this issue. outlaws, among the last in the Old “It wasn’t the end of Westerns, but it West, looKed and felt liKe a Western, certainly put a period at the end of an with banK holdups, train robberies and era.” chases. But the dialogue possessed a Unless you count 1974’s Blazing Saddles, modern sensibility. And the musical 1969 marKed the last time a Western score was anything but Western; more (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) was ’60s pop. The picture seemed liKe a the year’s top-grossing movie in America. Western hybrid. th Just before their 50 anniversaries, Screenwriter William Goldman said Roundup examines four monumental he came across the story of Butch and Westerns – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Sundance in the late 1950s. “What Kid, True Grit, The Wild Bunch and Sergio moved me … was that they ran away. I’d Leone’s Italian-U.S. production Once Upon never seen that before. They ran away a Time in the West, a “spaghetti Western” and became legends bigger the second partially filmed in Utah-Arizona’s Monu- time.” ment Valley, which director John Ford “That’s what made the movie, its made iconic in Western cinema years complete unconventionality,” Paul earlier. Newman, cast as Butch Cassidy, said. “By the end of the sixties, America was “When you expected something to turn reeling from ubiquitous violence, grow- ing polarization, and countless assaults The fnal showdown for Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford). on almost every imaginable American institution,” Richard Aquila writes in The Sagebrush Trail: Western Movies and Twentieth-Century America. “… numerous American westerns were questioning the image of the West as a glamorous land of freedom, opportunity, and redemption.” The Last Word: Pulitzer Prize winner Glenn FranKel examines another 1969 “Western,” the X-rated, Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy14 ROUNDUP. Page MAGAZINE 43 DECEMBER 2018 still saw the potential and purchased knew he wasn’t a comedy actor. As- Crawford recalled the audience howled. the screenplay for, at that time, the sociate producer Robert Crawford Jr. re- “Everyone was pleased, except George unheard-of price of $400,000. called Hill telling Newman, “This isn’t who said, ‘They laughed at my tragedy; George Roy Hill was hired to direct, a comedy, it’s an historical Western. they don’t get the end of my movie.’” though he had never made a West- The comedy will taKe care of itself. Just “We went bacK to the editing room,” ern before. However, that seemed to play it real.” Goldman said, “and we set about con- worK in his favor. According to Sil- Playing it real also provided an irony sciously taking out laughs.” verado screenwriter/director Lawrence for Butch in the film. After arriving in Shot for an estimated $6 million, the kasdan, Hill brought “a freshness to Bolivia, Butch and Sundance give up film earned more than $102 million. It the genre. He was not embarrassed to their outlaw ways, taKing jobs as payroll went on to win Oscars for original screen- have fun with it, things that would have guards. Bandits rob them of the gold play, cinematography, song and music made a more purist Western director they are carrying to the mine they work score. blanch.” for now, and Butch and Sundance face For all its humor, freshness and being a “The picture was designed for a them in a bloody gunfight. LooKing at different Kind of Western, it presents one contemporary feel,” Hill said, adding the dead bodies of the bandits, Sundance of the great Western themes. that Goldman’s dialogue, “where it isn’t says, “Well, we’ve gone straight. What’ll About half way through the film, Sher- actually anachronistic, has a very con- we try now?” Butch looKs stricKen. iff Bledsoe (played by Jeff Corey) tells temporary rhythm and sound to it.” “killing was something Butch had never Butch and Sundance, “You’re two-bit out- Even so, Robert Redford, who played had to do as an outlaw,” Hill said. laws on the dodge. … Your times is over the Sundance kid, said, “There was a While many moviegoers enjoyed and you’re going to die bloody.” The grim fear it was maybe a little too clever.” watching this atypical Western, Burt expressions on their faces say they realize Filming began on September 16, Bacharach’s bouncy music score, it, and the film ends with those haunting 1968. To achieve the washed-out look particularly the song, “Raindrops keep words coming true. he wanted, Hill chose Conrad Hall as Falling on My Head,” baffled, and even After a shoot-out with local police in a his cinematographer. irritated, some. Bolivian village, Butch and Sundance lay Locations included Colorado, New Hill said he intended to have a wounded and bleeding inside a cantina, Mexico, Utah and Cuernavaca in semi-modern score for the film, and but believe that they can still get away. Get- Mexico. Goldman recalled that the director also ting to their feet, the two friends run out- As Butch and Sundance, New- decided he wanted a musical scene. “I side, unaware that over a hundred Bolivian man and Redford are two of the most wrote one with Butch and Etta Place, soldiers are waiting on the rooftops with charming and amiable outlaws. They [Sundance’s girlfriend, played by Katha- rifles ready. Hill freezes the frame showing play off each other like an old mar- rine Ross,] riding a bicycle. Then he these two friends, their guns drawn and ried couple. “I don’t enjoy jungles and wanted a song.” firing, while the sound of rifle volleys echo I don’t enjoy swamps,” Butch says. “I Hill designed the staging with Butch over and over. A melancholy tune plays don’t liKe snaKes. I don’t much care clowning on a bicycle while Etta as the image dissolves into sepia tone, for night worK.” Sundance responds, watches. It was undeniably something liKe a fading memory, holding Butch and “Bitch, bitch, bitch.” After Butch ex- new and unexpected and perhaps Sundance frozen in time, punctuating the plains his idea about going to Bolivia, intended to show that these “raindrops” bittersweet passing of the Old West. Sundance says, “You just Keep thinKing were as out of place as Butch and Sun- Butch. That’s what you’re good at.” dance had become. Sources Butch shaKes his head and says, “I got “I thought [the film] was doomed The Making of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” vision and the rest of the world wears because they had a dumb song in the Robert Crawford Productions, 1971 All of What Follows is True: The Making of “Butch bifocals.” It’s hard not to like them. middle of it,” Redford said, and later Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Fox Home Video, 2006 In the scene where Butch and his realized how wrong he was. The Writer SpeaKs: William Goldman. Writers gang blow up a boxcar while robbing A preview was held in San Francisco. Guild Foundation, 2010 a train, the super posse bursts from a pursuing train and gives chase. Butch The bicycle scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was flmed outside this house in the ghost town of Grafton, Utah. WiKimedia Commons asKs Sundance how many of the posse are following them. “All of them,” Sundance says. “All of them!” Butch cries, then points at the other members of his gang galloping away in another direction and shouts, “What’s the mat- ter with those guys?” His indignation sells the line.