Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western buddy film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman. Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman), and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid" (Robert Redford), who are on the run from a crack US posse after a string of train robberies. The pair and Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), flee to Bolivia to escape the posse.

The film was released on September 24, 1969 and while initial reviews from critics were lukewarm, it has since seen a positive retrospective reappraisal. In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute ranked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as the 73rd-greatest American film on its "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)" list, and number 50 on the original list. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were ranked 20th-greatest heroes on "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains". Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was selected by the American Film Institute as the 7th-greatest Western of all time in the AFI's 10 Top 10 list in 2008.

In 1899 Wyoming, Butch Cassidy is the affable, clever, talkative leader of the outlaw Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. His closest companion is the laconic dead-shot "Sundance Kid". The two return to their hideout at Hole-in-the-Wall to discover that the rest of the gang, irritated by Cassidy's long absences, have selected Harvey Logan as their new leader.

Logan challenges Cassidy to a knife fight over the gang's leadership. Cassidy defeats him using trickery, but embraces Logan's idea to rob a Union Pacific train on both its eastward and westward runs, agreeing that the second robbery would be unexpected and thus reap more money than the first.

The first robbery goes well. To celebrate, Cassidy visits a favorite brothel in a nearby town, where the town marshal unsuccessfully attempts to organize a posse to track down the gang, only to have his address to the townsfolk hijacked by a friendly bicycle salesman. Sundance, meanwhile, visits his lover, schoolteacher Etta Place. Cassidy joins up with them the next morning, and takes Place for a ride on his new bike.

On the second train robbery, Cassidy uses too much dynamite to blow open the newly reinforced safe. The explosion demolishes the baggage car in the process and the money flies everywhere. As the gang scrambles to gather it, a second train arrives carrying a six-man team of lawmen. The crack squad pursues Cassidy and Sundance, who try to hide out in the brothel, and then to seek amnesty from Sheriff Bledsoe, to no avail.

The posse remains in pursuit, and it includes renowned Indian tracker "Lord Baltimore" and lawman Joe Lefors, recognizable by his white skimmer. Cassidy and Sundance elude their pursuers by jumping from a cliff into a river far below. They learn from Place that the posse has been paid by Union Pacific head E. H. Harriman to remain on their trail until they are both killed.

Cassidy convinces Sundance and Place that the three should go to Bolivia, which he envisions as a robber's paradise. On their arrival there, Sundance is dismayed by the living conditions and regards the country with contempt, but Cassidy remains optimistic. However, they know too little Spanish to pull off a bank robbery, so Place attempts to teach them the language. With her as an accomplice, they become successful bank robbers known as Los Bandidos Yanquis. However, their confidence drops after seeing a man wearing a white skimmer and fear that Harriman's posse is still after them.

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