One of the best films of the sixties came at the very end of the decade. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, a hybrid of the buddy comedy and a Western, was a huge hit with audiences when released in 1969. It also made a star of Robert Redford. And its bubbly, yet anachronistic pop song, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” finally earned Burt Bacharach his first Oscar as a composer.
Here are a few things you might not know about this classic movie:
1.) It almost co-starred Steve McQueen with Paul Newman.
William Goldman wrote the screenplay with Paul Newman and Jack Lemmon in mind. Lemmon had no interest in the project, so the studio next approached Steve McQueen. McQueen was interested but wanted top billing. The studio thought (correctly) that Newman was the bigger star and refused, so McQueen moved on. It was only after Marlon Brando and Warren Beatty also passed that Newman’s wife had an idea.
2.) The studio boss at 20th Century Fox had to be talked into casting Robert Redford.
Redford was primarily known as a stage actor at that point. It was Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward who suggested him for the role. Newman liked the idea and soon won over director George Roy Hill. Together, the three of them mounted a campaign to convince studio boss, Richard Zanuck to go with the unknown.
3.) The “Hole-in-the-Wall Gang” was not really named that.
Butch’s actual gang was named the Wild Bunch. (You can see where this is going, right?) Sam Peckinpaugh had filmed his own movie called The Wild Bunch (although it was not about Butch’s gang) and got it into theaters before Newman’s film. So, they simply changed the name of the gang in the film, basing it on a location in Wyoming where Butch & Sundance were known to hide out.
4.) The real-life super posse was much more effective than the one in the film.
A good deal of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid concerns a super posse that tracks our heroes (outlaws) until they finally flee to Bolivia. In the real world, that posse did form, but they didn’t have to do much tracking. When Butch and Sundance got word the posse was forming, they immediately hightailed it out of the country. No chase ever took place.
5.) Redford & Newman performed some of their own stunts.
They brought in a stunt man to perform the bicycle tricks of Butch Cassidy that happen during “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” but the stunt man kept falling off his bike. In the end, Newman performed his own stunts.
Likewise, Redford began by performing some of his own stunts. After Redford leaped onto a moving train in one shot, Newman got worried about losing his co-star to injury and convinced Redford to let the stunt team handle the dangerous stuff from that point on.
6.) Katherine Ross was actually kicked off the set.
At the time of filming, Ross was engaged to the movie’s cinematographer, Conrad Hall. During one scene, Hall allowed his sweetie to handle one of the cameras. In a tightly run union town such as Hollywood, that was a huge no-no, so director Hill had Ross banned from the set except when she had a scene in which she was acting.
7.) The initial cut of the film was deemed too funny.
Comedy westerns rarely did well at the box office. When audiences at the first test screenings were laughing loud and long all the way through the picture, Hill took the film back into the editing suite and cut some of the film’s funniest footage.
8.) “Most of what follows is true” isn’t true.
The film opens with that title card. But the actual truth is that screenwriter Goldman (who received a then-record $400,000 for the screenplay) didn’t want to do the tedious research it would have taken to ensure historical accuracy. So, he just took some of the generally accepted parts of the Butch & Sundance legend and wrote whatever he thought would make the most entertaining film.
One final thought, without this film, what would they call the Sundance Film Festival?
