Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (2006, DVD)

In the "Hole in the Wall Country" of Southern Montana and Northern Wyoming, they still talk of George "Butch" Cassidy and Lonny Longbaugh, aka "The Sundance Kid." For over 20 years, the pair robbed banks and trains. In fact, before they went East, and then took a ship for South America they are credited with one of the last and most successful classic train robberies. For a time, they lived on their loot in the company of the beautiful and rather mysterious Etta Place, once perhaps a school teacher, but probably a prostitute by the time she met Butch and Sundance.

Inevitably, they ran low on money and returned to their old habits, robbing banks and trains in the Andes. Meanwhile, the Pinkerton Detective Agency, employed by the Banks, Railways and Federal Government, got a line on them and distributed domestically, later overseas, a group photo of Butch, Sundance, George "Flatnose" Curry, "Black Jack" Ketchum and the rest of "The Hole in the Wall Gang." Etta Place left Butch and Sundance to return to the United States, where she disappeared, and the other members of the gang were hunted down, one by one, throughout the Western States.

Butch and Sundance, however, lived on, it is thought, until 1910, when they made the mistake of trying to rob a bank in Bolivia near to a town where a company of troops was stationed. The pair, badly wounded, died after a siege, probably by their own hands.

Still, there are stories that they escaped, bribed the police, roamed the Southwest during World War I. Butch is said to have changed his name and founded a well known business machine company. People still alive claim to have recognized him when he made a final visit to Montana in 1935.

Recent forensic evidence supports the conclusion,as the Movie depicts, that they died in South America.

By all accounts of those who knew them, Butch was a Good Samaritan and Sundance a happy-go-lucky kind of character.

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969), then, directed by George Roy Hill (THE STING, 1973), written by William Goldman (ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, 1976), photographed by Conrad Hall (AMERICAN BEAUTY, 1999) with a score by Bert Bacharach ("Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"), combines a rather factual narrative with an imaginatively paced and presented style. (It revived "the buddy movie" in Hollywood.)

After a sepia silent film reconstruction of one of their famous train robberies, we join Butch and Sundance (Paul Newman, Robert Redford) in mid career, just out of jail, as they hike into the Hole in the Wall to be confronted by tall George "Flatnose" Curry (Tim Cassidy) who has taken over the Gang in their absence. Butch bests him in unorthodox fashion and the comic-whimsical-adventure is on its way.

Unorthodox, too, is the way that the film edits in photos, quick cut "documentaries," and little scenes -- like Butch riding Etta (Katharine Ross) on the handlebars of a bicycle -- which do not advance the story but establish a mood.

I have a final, personal piece of evidence to support the authenticity of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID.

In the mid-1970's, my wife and I made a getaway visit to LA. While there we looked up an old friend in the High Desert and called my wife's Cousin Grace. She had married a man who did something in the movies. The Family didn't think much of him. "Land Sakes," Aunt Mae would remark. "He just goes from thing to thing. Can't hold a job for any time at all!"

Cousin Grace invited us to a nice house in Topanga Canyon. (Of course, we knew she had a steady job in real estate.) When we arrived with a little "care package" for them, she told us that "John" had a job at Universal City but could get away for lunch with us at Trader Don's. (He probably runs one of those new rides, I thought.)

We met John C. Howard, and after a pleasant lunch, he suggested because his job was finished that we go back to the house and talk movies. My wife and I exchanged "another job lost" glance.

I held forth on half a dozen classics, and it was late in the afternoon before I dared offer John a helping hand. "What is it, exactly, that you do in movies? You're too young to be that actor from Cleveland, John Howard. Are you in sales? Do you -- "

"I'm a film editor," he said, "a senior film editor."

"Oh-h-h-h . . . Well, well, that's the Art of the Motion Picture!"

"We like to think so."

"So . . . Yes, well . . . tell me, is there anything you've done I might know?"

"Grace?" He pointed. "When you're up getting Al another Heinekin show him that thing over the fireplace."

Soon I had a fresh beer in one hand and a grey Wedgewood statuette in the other.

"They wanted us to go to London when we were nominated," he explained, " but we didn't think we'd win. Get stuck in the back of the room, you know? Some of the guys went though, sat with Olivier and Sir Ralph Richardson, had a great time. We wished we had gone because, damned if we didn't win!"

At that point, my eye fell on an inscription at the black base of the statuette: "The British Film Institute Presents the Award for Best Editing to John C. Howard and . . . for BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID."

I shut up, and for the rest of the afternoon, John told us fabulous stories about Butch, Sundance; William Goldman's research for the screenplay; how Newman and Redford wanted to get it right for Director George Roy Hill because he had hurt his back mid-film, was directing strapped to a stretcher, afraid the film might be taken away from him. John also mentioned in passing a couple of other films he had edited: THE BOSTON STRANGLER for Richard Fleischer; YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and SILENT MOVIE for Mel Brooks!

Truth is stranger than we can imagine.

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