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34 of 36 found the following review helpful:
 Still Great Contemporary-Feeling Western Classic in a Robust DVD Package Heavy on ExtrasJun 29, 2006
By Ed Uyeshima
It amazes me how incredibly well this 1969 western has held up after all these years. At once classically structured and satirically executed, director George Roy Hill and screenwriter William Goldman have pulled together a supremely entertaining period picture that caters to contemporary sensibilities to this day. It is to their credit that the film remains true to the characters and never gets too broad during its quickly paced 110-minute running time. The story naturally revolves around the legendary outlaws who robbed banks at the turn of the last century. Their escapades are divided roughly into three sections in the film. The first is the introductory set-up where their opposite yet complementary personalities are established. Leading the motley Hole in the Wall Gang, they ultimately pull off a train robbery with an excess of dynamite. The second part is an extended chase sequence where Butch and Sundance are chased relentlessly by a group of unknown bounty hunters.
The third and final part details their escape to Bolivia where they are determined to go straight but get caught up with local bandits and find their infamous past catching up with them. It seems inconceivable to have anyone other than Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the title roles. As the more established star at the time, Newman is characteristically laconic as Butch. His innate likeability is enhanced by his rascally manner and crack comedy timing. In the more traditional gunslinger role, Redford provides the ideal partner with his flinty manner and unavoidable charisma. In between them is Katharine Ross, fresh from "The Graduate", who plays Etta with sensual élan, though she does not figure in the most critical scenes. Of course, Burt Bacharach's instantly recognizable musical score is here, and while there is an anachronistic feel to such 1960's-sounding pop music over a western, it somehow works because the attitude of the film seems so modern. Even the comically romantic bicycle sequence manages to preserve its buoyancy thanks to the inane but undeniably catchy "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head".
Conrad Hall's vibrant, burnished cinematography deserves special mention as it has been preserved well in the 2006 Ultimate Collector's Edition DVD package. The rest of the two-disc package is robust though bordering on overkill, adding on to the features that were already included in the previous 2000 Special Edition DVD. Retained from that edition is the interesting combination of perspectives provided by Hill, Hall, lyricist Hal David and associate producer Bob Crawford in their joint commentary track. New is separate and equally insightful commentary from Goldman. Another holdover from the previous edition is the forty-minute vintage documentary, "The Making of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid", a still terrific featurette from 1970 with participation from Newman, Goldman, Hill and Redford.
There are three new documentaries - a 2005 retrospective look at the film called "All of What Follows is True: The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"; a fact-check featurette called "The Wild Bunch: The True Tale of Butch & Sundance"; and the somewhat repetitive "History Through the Lens: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid: Outlaws Out of Time", a cumulative effort which combines elements of all the other documentaries into one ninety-minute feature. Lots of great insight is provided on the 1994 interviews with Newman, Redford, Ross, Goldman and Bacharach. A deleted scene is also included with Hill's commentary (since the audio had been lost) - it is a disposable transitional scene where Butch and Sundance are watching newsreel footage of themselves in a Bolivian theater while Etta quietly leaves to the train station. Lastly, there are trailers for eight of Newman's vintage films. This is definitely a robust package for one of the great films of the 1960's.
43 of 47 found the following review helpful:
 NEEDS REMASTERING. FILM: Wonderful. Transfer: Not so much...Dec 02, 2008
By APC Reviews
"APC Reviews"
A great film that deserves a new transfer. The source transfer of this film appears to be the same source as the one used for the DVD version. This is not to say that it doesn't look much better in Blu-Ray than it does on DVD. But it is not, evidently, a brand new remastered transfer made expressly for Blu-Ray release.
As happened in past generations of video standards, VHS to LaserDisc, LaserDisc to DVD, standard definition 480i to "high def" 1080i, and now 480p progressive scan DVD to 1080p Blu-Ray, the studios are cutting corners and, with many titles, re-issuing transfers that were "pretty good" for the prior standard on newer media without re-mastering them for the full potential of the newer standard. "Pretty good" is not why you buy a Blu-Ray, or pay a premium for it.
Sadly, some major film titles are being "shoved out there" on the new Blu-Ray format. This appears to be one of them. Although not nearly as bad as the abysmal "Silence Of the Lambs" and "Interview With The Vampire" BDs, the high-def picture quality of "Butch Cassidy" is still sub-par and underwhelming compared to what it could have been with a new-transfer made with BD release in mind.
44 of 50 found the following review helpful:
 Great movie - terrible restoration!Jun 14, 2008
By Mike
This disc ranks right up there with one of the worst Blu-ray transfers I own (along with the first Stargate release). It is a shame, as this is a really great and fun movie. It is one of the first westerns I recall that really interspersed humor with drama in an effective way. I thought it tried to be a bit too much or to have something for everyone (the bicycle scene went on a little long for my taste, for example). Audio is fine but the failure to produce a really outstanding video transfer (as was done with Patton recently) will disappoint the many fans of this movie who were eagerly awaiting this release.
22 of 26 found the following review helpful:
"You Just Keep Thinking, Butch...!"Mar 16, 2002
By J. H. Minde
"Everything I need is right here"
This film truly deserves the description of being a "Classic." Paul Newman and Robert Redford (in the company of Director George Roy Hill and a particularly appealing Katharine Ross), take the history of the bloodthirsty "Hole-in-the-Wall Gang," and turn it into an affectionate cinematic portrayal of male bonding and cultural change. Taking place at the end of the 19th century, Butch and Sundance are, as veteran actor Jeff Corey, playing a sympathetic sheriff and accidental existentialist, snarls, "two-bit outlaws on the dodge!" They spend much of the movie dodging a posse hired to hunt them down and kill them in the wake of a series of amusing train robberies. The location shooting of their escape is breathtakingly beautiful. Ultimately, they have to flee the closing frontier, and end up in Bolivia, which is portrayed as a kind of low-rent version of the Old West. Their trip to South America is an intermezzo, done in sepia tint, focusing on their stay in New York, which, with its (relatively) modern conveniences, underscores how anachronistic their lifestyle has become. Their inability to rob banks in Bolivia without using Spanish-language crib sheets is both hilarious and touching, a kind of paradigm of cultural and technological dislocation. In keeping with its 1969 release date, the film has a strong antiestablishment cant to it: Authority is faceless, unyielding, and, mostly, inept. It is telling that Butch and Sundance kill no one until they "go straight" as payroll guards. Their criminal lifestyle is romanticized as a kind of "On The Road" on horseback. That this doesn't offend the audience is a measure of how fine this movie is. The warmth and humor overcome both the moral relativity of the characters and their sad ending. Newman and Redford are wonderful together as the affable outlaws. Newman's Butch is a charming, flaky visionary who is trying desperately to cling to the past. When confronted with the new alarms and teller's cages at a favorite bank, he dismisses the guard's explanation of, "People kept robbing us" with a wistful, "It's a small price to pay for beauty." As Butch says: "The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles!" In a sense: the Western Outlaw was succeeded by "Public Enemy Number One" when cars succeeded horses, and train and bank robberies became Federal crimes. "Your times is over!," Jeff Corey insists, and he's right. Redford plays Sundance as the stylish straight man, never quite falling prey to Butch's dreams, but never able to dismiss them utterly: "You just keep thinking, Butch, that's what you're best at!" The onscreen chemistry between Newman and Redford is so palpable that although they only made two films together ("The Sting" in 1973 is a modernized version of "Butch & Sundance"), they can easily be considered one of the finest comedy duos ever, anywhere. The dialogue between them is banter between two very good, very old, very comfortable, friends. Maybe there was a script involved, too. "Butch and Sundance" may be short on facts, but it speaks a kind of truth for which facts are not needed.
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 Details of new Blu-ray DVD due out on May 13th, 2008, the good and the not-so-good newsApr 25, 2008
By Sanpete
The new Blu-ray release of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid will reportedly carry over only some of the special features of the 2006 SD Collector's Edition. According to the studio press release it will include the following:
-- audio commentary by director George Roy Hill, associate producer Robert Crawford, cinematographer Conrad Hall, and lyricist Hal David
-- audio commentary by screenwriter William Goldman
-- "All of What Follows is True: The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (35:27)
-- "The Wild Bunch: The True Tale of Butch & Sundance" (25:11)
-- deleted scenes
-- theatrical trailers
That leaves out the 1994 documentary "The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (42:09), "History Through the Lens: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Outlaws Out of Time" (90:16), 1994 interviews with Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katherine Ross, writer William Goldman, and composer Burt Bacharach (49:42), and some smaller bits.
The new release apparently will have no new special features.
A Blu-ray edition of this film has been out for a while outside the US, very likely in the same transfer that will be on this US release. The video quality is reportedly about as good as can be expected, better than the SD release, particularly in color depth, but also showing more effectively the grain that was part of the filming process used in some scenes designed to look antique, perhaps more effectively than is desirable in some cases. (Most of this comes from Gary Tooze's review of the Japanese Blu-ray release at dvdbeaver.)
Technical specs: 2.35:1 Widescreen Transfer (1080p/AVC), English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, subtitles in English, Cantonese, Korean, and Spanish.
The movie is of course a classic, a lighthearted look at a legend with two now-legendary actors who were then still on their way up. A combination of unconventional Western and buddy flick, it works well as drama and at least as well as comedy. The little music video in the middle with "Raindrops Are Falling on My Head" is very dated and stands out like a sore thumb, but it's still fun. Very few people don't enjoy this movie.
Assuming the studio press release is accurate, and it does fit the recent practices of Fox, most die-hard fans will probably want to hold on to their Collector's Editions even if they upgrade to Blu-ray. I'm personally disappointed that some of the old features already easily available to Fox won't be included, and subtract one star (one half star if I could). But it's likely to be a fine release otherwise.
If you don't have this on DVD, you might want to weigh the extensive, even exhausting special features from the 2006 SD Collector's Edition against the more limited but still ample features on the Blu-ray, along with the somewhat better image.
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