“Morons. I have Morons on My Team”
Which doesn’t even make sense. He’s the one waiting in the house when she gets there, so if anyone’s late, it’s her.
When my debate team hears me mutter that, they know they’ve screwed up.
As for Etta, I figure that Sundance was due in a day or so earlier. He wouldn’t be riding in during broad daylight - too obvious.
On Netlix in the UK (at least) there’s a short, contemperaneous doc narrated by George Roy Hill about the making of Butch and Sundance- it says - ‘probably the first making of in hollywood history’. It’s short at about 50 mins, but is enjoyable and funny.
I too bumped on Katherine Ross’ shoeless feet on the bike scene in watching it this time.
Boy, they were so handsome.
MiM
I think the idea is that she’d been waiting for him for some number of days (or more). She was expecting him Monday, and he didn’t show up until Friday (because of outlaw shenanigans).
I think it may work even better. People still do role play.
Couldn’t they have split the posse in two?
It doesn’t matter if they searched one side of the river or both. Butch and Sundance had a 24 hour head start, probably more with the time it would take to find where they got out of the river. The posse could no longer see Butch and Sundance and wouldn’t know if they were on the right track. The posse couldn’t travel faster than Butch and Sundance, mainly slower to keep tracking them, and they would have fallen steadily behind. And if the guys hopped on a wagon or a boat or a train there was no way to track them after that. The posse turned around and went back to the train to wait for another robbery.
Not sure why they would have a 24-hour head start. It was morning IIRC correctly, and the posse had eyes on them when they jumped. If Butch and Sundance drifted for, say, 15 minutes, that’s plenty of time for the posse to get back to their horses and descend to the level of the river. However far Butch and Sundance drifted is all the head start they would have.
But the posse had horses and Butch and Sundance were on foot, unless …
Just want to post that this was a memorable moment in our exposing our kids to classic movies from quite young ages. They absolutely LOVED the movie - up until the final moment. They couldn’t believe that the protagonists died in the end! Not only did they cry, but they got pissed at US about it! 
How much time it took is unknown. Since they got away it was enough to dissuade the posse.
They were on horseback before and they were a lot easier to track that way, horses leave a lot of signs behind, even when traveling over rock if they’re shod. Tracking isn’t magic, the trackers can’t ride full speed and track someone they can’t see at the same time, they have to stop frequently to look for signs, and even when they find one they can’t be sure if they are going in the right direction until they find another sign. The posse started out following Butch and Sundance, they knew which direction they were going and they were never far out of sight. Then the guys jumped into the river and took off by foot. So even if they disappeared by vehicle to the trackers, they were still outpacing the trackers and would have lost them in time. Especially so because the trackers knew that would happen and wouldn’t bother trying to follow them.
If he’d just pay me what he’s paying them to stop me robbin’ him, I’d stop robbin’ him!
A very good movie, but not quite a great one. The first half is better than the second. Lots of great lines, though. Sometimes at the curling club, when someone throws a really hard takeout, I’ll say “think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?”
Did the kids notice that the protagonists were robbing a lot of banks/trains and killed a lot of law enforcement towards the end? Sounds like a teachable moment!
What if Lord Baltimore is searching the wrong side of the river?
I think the rape-play scene would have been even worse if Steve McQueen had been cast as originally envisaged. McQueen was credible as a guy who’d assaulted women; Robert Redford only as the type of arrogant jerk who’d hide his assets during a divorce.
It is a well known fact that horses require lots and lots of water and they need to rest far more than humans do. Horses can carry the weight of ropes and water and other useful things, but at the cost of travelling much slower. That is the reason on cattle drives each Cowboy had a string of horses that he would ride – some not being ridden for entire days at a time. In short, horses in the old west were similar to starting pitchers in MLB; they are real useful for a few innings but then need to rest for days until their next start in the rotation. Also, with a horse you have to stay pretty damn close to the river (or some water supply), horses require significantly more water than a man would at any pace.
At the time this movie was made there might have still been a few Western TV shows being produced, but for sure there were Westerns on TV routinely- daily. It was a common trope for the star of a TV western to walk into a saloon and for some loud mouthed villainy type to say:" They just serve any old sidewinder in this place, don’t they?" Then the star steps toward the stranger and makes a manly stand about not suffering fools gladly. The villainous stranger steps closer to the star as they exchange barbs- soon they are nose to nose and all the by-standers are nervously standing perpendicular to the line of fire the two men are creating with their hands drifting ever closer to the butt of their six shooters.
Just when you think the thunderous right cross . . . or a gunfight is inevitable, the two hug and greet each other! “Haven’t seen you since we served together three years before the pilot episode!” they exclaim! The misdirection was a standard part of the cowboy vernacular, it had just never been applied to a male – female dynamic before. It was most often used to make an ally seem like an adversary initially. The only western character who was too straight laced to play such games in a saloon was that sod buster from New Mexico who spent most of his time trying to avoid using his fists or his Winchester repeating rifle so he could raise his crops and his son, Lucas McCain. If Lucas had words with someone in the opening scene – he would spend the next 22 minutes avoiding violence without ever backing down, and the last minute before the epilogue knocking him on his ass or filling him with several rounds of hot lead.
[Thus ends my hijack of a particular movie thread with discussions of various TV cowboys.]
I would pick parallel, personally. Maybe they were made of sterner stuff back then.
See Raiders of the Lost Ark where Marion and Indy look a bit like adversaries at her drinking establishment as a man/woman dynamic. Of course, RotLA is a repackaged western anyway - almost a parody.
I saw this movie in a second run theater when I was probably like eleven or twelve and even at that age I could tell that Katharine Ross was in no way scared of the man in her house. I might not have been up on the vernacular of sexxay role playing but I could tell there was something going on but it wasn’t going to be scary or violent. You don’t shake out your hair like that for a stranger, that’s a couples move.
Well I meant perpendicular but not intersecting – but parallel works also. Out of the line of fire in other words. Of course in TV westerns hardly ever is a single round wasted- no one ever missed unless the shot ricochet next to your eye and gravel stopped you from shooting momentarily. Personally, I would avoid standing parallel to quick-draw shooters because a barrel one inch out of true could be pretty far off target by the time the bullet lost enough speed to be nonlethal (it would likely hit the ground before then anyway I suppose). I believe the most common misfire is low, before the gun is leveled at the target, but it is by no means unusual to shoot off to one side or the other in real life (again, never happens in TV Westerns [even Seth McFarlane can hit a guy in the arm from twenty feet away!])
Actually, there is a great example of this at the end Of Butch & Sundance. When they come out at Bolivian Army, guns blasting, it is pretty obvious Redford is not pointing one of his revolvers at the target. It might freeze frame, or it might have been on a poster or something but I have a very strong memory of him pointing the six shooter in his off hand sideways (well not quite- but way, way off where he was focused)
I would say we could call that scene an homage to Sundance and Etta!