Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) follows two robbers who run to Bolivia rather than be caught. It is a western built on talk instead of fighting: two men talking to each other, making light of danger, and running. The running was exactly what bothered the studio. William Goldman recalled an executive rejecting the script for that reason, because protagonists who flee were not how westerns worked. One studio head put it plainly: I don't give a shit, all I know is John Wayne don't run away. Other actors were considered for Sundance first. Jack Lemmon turned it down because he disliked horses. Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty also passed, Beatty thinking it too close to Bonnie and Clyde. It won four Oscars: Original Screenplay for Goldman, Cinematography for Conrad Hall, Original Score for Burt Bacharach, and Best Song for Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head. It cost six million dollars, made 102 million in North America, and was the highest grossing film of 1969. It runs 111 minutes. Good for: westerns that work on people who dislike westerns, two hander chemistry, Newman and Redford. Less good for: it is nowhere near the historical record and the violence is softened. The bicycle sequence and its song lift the film abruptly into another register, which reads as a break if that register is not for you.