Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

Title Screen
Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
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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!"
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" - Bicycle Ride
  • 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?"

"I can't swim"

"AWWWWW S-----T"
Stranded on a Cliff and Jumping Into a River
  • 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

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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