Customer Reviews

Worthy DVD - By: Jonathan Hayward, 04 Mar 2007
A fine DVD of the classic western famous for the witty by-play between Newman & Redford & the luminous photography by the distingushed Conrad Hall,this has some interesting extras,most of all a rarely-seen documentary of the film with fascinating behind the scenes footage, narrated by the director George Roy Hill.PARENTS BE WARNED!! though;Hill comes out with a few choice expletives during his commentary,so it should not be shown to young children.The DVD notes should've made this clearer,but barring this minor quibble it's an excellent all-round package of one of Hollywood's best remembered westerns.

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A western with a difference - By: Groggy, 28 Dec 2005
Not to be confused with Wayne, Scott, Stewart westerns, as good as they were, this is almost a genre all of its own, a sixties cult that hasn't aged probably due to it being setin days long gone. Redford & Newman bring to life the characters of Butch & Sundance (whether accurately or not it dosent really matter), & you really would forgive them anything. The whole film is done with such style & humour that for a while you enter a new world, something which all great films do. The filming is beautiful & the attractiveness of the stars including Katherine Ross who is stunningly gorgeous just makes the film one which you will remember forever.

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Super Cassidy and Fantastic Kid - By: , 25 Aug 2005
There is nothing else to say apart from: This is an all time great.

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Legends. - By: Themis-Athena, 12 May 2005
How do you ensure somebody's legacy as a hero? In the good old days, you wrote a book. Nowadays, you make a movie - & if you're lucky & 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 & 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, & some of the world's most beautiful locations, filmed by an exceptional cinematographer (Conrad Hall) ... you just may pull it off. Casein point: "Butch & 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 - & his stance for settlers' rights vis-a-vis the wealthy cattle barons, Sundance (Henry Longbaugh) had the reputation of a loner; a fast draw repeatedlyin & out of prison before even turning twenty-one. After several of their Wild Bunch/Holein the Wall Gang associates had seen the short end of the stickin various encounters with the law, Butch & Sundance determined things were getting too hotin the West and, unlike the outlaws who not much earlier had stood it out until the end (Billy the Kid, the James Gang & 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 farmingin Argentina - both had done cattle work before turning to robbery, althoughin the form of rustling (stealing unbranded cattle) - but eventually reverted to their more profitable, preferred occupation. Most sources believe they diedin a 1909 shootout with the Bolivian militaryin a town named San Vicente; others, however, claim either or both escaped alive, returned to the States under assumed names & died there (Sundancein Casper, WYin 1957 & 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 & 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 Holein the Wall Gang train robbery, followed by the bold claim that "most of what follows is true" - whichin 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 & 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 kickin the groin, & a marshal trying to assemble a posse first meets with a lackluster population, neither willing to bring their own horses & guns nor clamoring to be supplied with such by him, &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) & sepia-tinted shots for period feeling (besides the opening, also to sum up the trio's stayin New York), a Bolivian bank robbery with a crib sheet containing "specialized vocabulary" that Butch, contrary to initial claims, doesn't knowin Spanish, & an immortalizing freeze-frame ending - & you have one heck of an entertaining movie, shotin some of the West's most spectacular settings &in Mexico (as Bolivia's stand-in).

"Butch & Sundance" turned Redford into a megastar - Hill lobbied hard for the then-perceived "playboy"'s casting, & 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, & his independent film festival's namesake. The movie renewed popular interestin the Outlaw Trail, which Redford himself traveled later, too (chronicledin 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 & 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!") & 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, & his one weakness ("I can't swim!!"); & finally Strother Martin/mine-owner Percy Garris's deadpan delivery of the Shanghai Rooster song, of "Morons ... I've got morons on my team" & his assertion not to be crazy but merely colorful. The famous freeze-frame ending has repeatedly been cited, both cinematographically (e.g. "Thelma & Louise") &in dialogue (e.g. 1998's "Negotiator"). And although initially almost uniformly panned by critics, the movie won quadruple Oscars & multiple other awards. In true Hollywood fashion, it has made two fearsome outlaws legends forever ... &in the process, also won legendary status itself.

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Great classic - By: MR MICHAEL DALY, 20 Mar 2005
We forgot how good this film was. Not only is it full of adventure, but humour too!