4. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)
Straddling the line between the revolutionary filmmaking of the 1970s and the tail end of classic Hollywood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of those movies that isn’t legendary because it’s important, or because it’s meaningful, or because it broke some rich new ground in the language of filmmaking. It’s legendary because it’s funny, fun, and incredibly entertaining. It’s also one of those films where everyone seems to be firing on all cylinders; the sly buddy-western could easily be counted as a career high for Robert Redford, director George Roy Hill and his cameraman Connie Hall, screenwriter William Goldman, and even composer Burt Bacharach. But Paul Newman is the glue that holds everything together: taking on Goldman’s witty dialogue, he gives it just enough of a human, weary edge that it doesn’t seem as over-the-top as it might coming from some actors. Some performers go their whole lives without snaring a part like Butch Cassidy, and others get one, but handle it all wrong. You sometimes hear actors referred to as intelligent, but rarely movie stars; it’s a testament to how bright Paul Newman was that he was handed a role as rich as this one and figured it out immediately, playing it on screen as perfectly as it could be played. This is a real movie star role, and Newman handles it like a real movie star.
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