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Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
In George Roy Hill's comedy-western, there
was continual amusing banter throughout the film between two western
legendary, train-robbing anti-hero outlaws Butch (Paul Newman) and
the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) - the two were leaders of the Hole-in-the-Wall
gang in Wyoming in the early 1900s:
- after an absence when the two returned to their hideout
location, Butch found his leadership had been contested, and he was
being challenged by brutish, Bowie-knife-wielding gang member Harvey
Logan (Ted Cassidy); the unarmed Butch cleverly delayed the fight
by distracting Harvey and arguing: "No, no, not yet, not until
me and Harvey get the rules straightened out"; Harvey exclaimed: "Rules
- in a knife fight? No rules!", when Butch swiftly kicks him
in his crotch with a perfectly-aimed blow. The uprising was quickly
suppressed as Harvey crumpled to his knees
- after re-establishing command, Butch ironically co-opted
Harvey's audacious plan to rob the Union Pacific Flyer twice on successive
runs - they'll hit it in one direction and then hit it again on its
return trip: "Nobody's done that to the Flyer before. No matter
how much we got the first time, they'd figure the return was safe
and load it up with money"
- during the gang's train robbery, Butch implored the
RR agent Woodcock (George Furth), the stubborn, 'patriotic', and
loyal agent for E. H. Harriman, the President of the Railroad, to
open the door and avoid getting hurt: "You're
just gonna get yourself blown up if you don't open that door";
when Woodcock kept resisting, an explosive dynamite charge blew a
large hole in the wall of the railroad car; the two were slightly
concerned that Woodcock was injured
- in town, as the Marshal (Kenneth Mars) vainly struggled
to raise a posse to go after the gang, Butch and Sundance listened
from the second floor balcony-porch of their favorite brothel/saloon
(Fanny Porter's)
- during a film interlude, both Butch and Sundance
paid a visit with Sundance's 26 year-old lover, prim schoolmarm Etta
Place (Katharine Ross); Sundance's surprise arrival occurred in her
farmhouse bedroom when - in the sexy and surprising scene from the
corner of the room, he ordered her to unbutton her blouse and undress
in front of him at gunpoint; she briefly complied, but then chided
him with a question and rebuke:
"Do you know what I wish?...That once, you'd get here on time!"
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"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My
Head" - Bicycle Ride
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- the next morning, Butch appeared outside their window
riding one of a salesman's new-fangled bicycles of "the future" -
with a melodramatic voice, he spoke:
"You are mine, Etta Place. Mine. Do you hear me? Mine.
All mine. Your soft white flesh is mine. Soft. White"; Butch tried
out the latest newfangled invention, with Etta precariously perched
on the handlebars, accompanied by Burt Bacharach's contemporary smash
hit, the Award-winning song: "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head"
- their second robbery of the Union Pacific Flyer was
less successful than the first; they again encountered stubborn,
bruised and bandaged Woodcock guarding the safe; a loud, oversized
female passenger (Jody Gilbert) protested the delays and bullied
her way over to the robbers: "I'm a grandmother and a female
and I've got my rights!"; cleverly using ventriloquism, they
tricked Woodcock into opening the train door; however, the robbers
used too much dynamite to open the reinforced safe and the tremendous
blast blew pieces of paper money into the wind - Sundance laughingly
joked: "Do you think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?"
- before the gang could gather up the money, a formidable
Superposse of a half-dozen men on horseback swiftly exited from the
side of the boxcar pulled by another locomotive - Butch sensed trouble
and warned: "Whatever they're sellin', I don't want it!";
soon after, Butch and Sundance realized that they were being relentlessly
pursued by the mysterious posse; Butch asked: "What's the matter
with those guys?"; their strained banter during the chase was
wryly humorous: (Butch: I think we lost 'em. Do you think we lost
'em? Sundance: No. Butch: Neither do I), and Butch became worried as
they were tracked: "I
couldn't do that. Could you do that? How can they do that?"; Butch repeatedly
asked the question: "Who are those guys?"
- when eventually trapped and cornered on a dead-end
cliff, Butch declared: "Kid - the next time I say, 'Let's go
someplace like Bolivia,' let's go someplace like Bolivia." Sundance
wryly responded: "Next time?"; Sundance also admitted: "I
can't swim" (with Butch's guffawing retort: "Why, you crazy,
the fall'll probably kill ya") and they made a big jump off
the steep canyon ledge into the fast-moving river below while yelling
a long and drawn out: "AWWWWW S-----T"
"Who are those guys?"
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"I can't swim"
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"AWWWWW S-----T"
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Stranded on a Cliff and Jumping Into a River
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- after
the two outlaws retreated to Etta's place, they decided to high-tail
it to South America (Bolivia) ("wherever
the hell Bolivia is"), believing it would be easy and safe living
there; soon after, following a brief visit to NYC, the trio boarded
a steamer to South America; the dapper-dressed trio stepped off a
Bolivian train in a country village (Santa Ines) in the middle of
a god-forsaken landscape, filled with llamas, pigs, piglets, chickens
and adobe huts
- the group (after learning some
Spanish words) conducted a series of successful, clever and amusing
heists, as Etta assisted them, while their outlaw reputation revived
their status as hunted criminals, and wanted posters appeared for the
arrest of the marked men - "Bandidos de los Estados Unidos"; for a short while,
they reformed and went "straight," serving as payroll guards
for a mining company to protect the transport of gold shipments from "payroll
thieves", and employed by old prospector Percy Garris (Strother
Martin); when forced to kill other bandits on the job, Sundance told
Butch that their efforts to go straight had failed, and that the
job proved more violent than robbing banks: "Well we've gone
straight. What do we try now?"; knowing that their days were
numbered, Etta decided to return to the U.S. ahead of them
- with Etta gone, the two offbeat outlaws resorted to
their old ways - robbing a payroll mule train, but the Bolivian constabulary
- including a whole regiment of hundreds of Bolivian cavalry - was
alerted to their presence; in the final sequence,
the surrounded, wounded and doomed heroes, Yanqui banditos, joked
and daydreamed: ("For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble")
and then were caught at the point of death in a freeze-framed shootout
in Bolivia (turning from color to sepia-toned)
Freeze-Framed Demise During Shootout
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Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman)
The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford)
Harvey Logan (Ted Cassidy)
Butch's Knife Fight with Harvey Ending With a Crotch Kick
Etta Undressing at Gunpoint for Sundance
Woodcock Tricked Into Opening Train Door
Sundance: "...Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?"
Super-Posse Emerged From Private Train Boxcar
Butch: "Whatever they're sellin', I don't want it"
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