Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Director: George Roy Hill

Writer: William Goldman

Composer: Burt Bacharach

Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katherine Ross, Strother Martin, Henry Jones, Jeff Corey, George Furth, Cloris Leachman, Ted Cassidy, Kenneth Mars, Donnelly Rhodes, Sam Elliott

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Just for the fun of it!

Plot: Butch and Sundance are the two leaders of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. Butch is all ideas, Sundance is all action and skill. The west is becoming civilized and when Butch and Sundance rob a train once too often, a special posse begins trailing them no matter where they run. Over rock, through towns, across rivers, the group is always just behind them. When they finally escape through sheer luck, Butch has another idea, "Let's go to Bolivia". Based on the exploits of the historical characters.

My rating: 8.5/10

Will I watch it again? Naturally.

Great flick.  I would love to see this in a theater, overwhelmed by the beautiful landscapes.  I love the American West like nothing else.  It's gorgeous out here.  Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, etc.  It's a remarkable chunk of land and it's so diverse.  I'm sure they filmed a lot of this in the Rocky Mountain region.  So many of the scenes in this film look familiar to me from my travels that it takes me back there despite where I happen to be at the time.  It's a fun film filled with wonderful performances.  The leads are so charismatic and work well together.  Strother Martin's brief appearance elevates the film.  He's a gas.  It's also great to see Ted "Lurch from the 60s ADDAMS FAMILY TV show" Cassidy.  He's got an imposing presence that's all too shortly lived.  The only thing that I'm still not comfortable with (although with each viewing it gets easier and easier to accept) is Burt Bacharach's modern pop score.  The songs stand out like a sore thumb and the one used in the South American montage is all kinds of weird.  They're great and catchy songs but they're strange when set to the Western backdrop of the early 1900s.  It's a classic.  There's no denying it.  It's beautifully shot (Conrad HalL), it's a fun and exciting Western and it's definitely one you can say, "They don't make 'em like that anymore".

UPDATE 1/17/16:  Yay!  I got to see it in a theater and it was awesome!  Damn if that Paul Newman wasn't a rock solid charismatic movie star.  The music is growing on me.