The scene goes like this: Legendary outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford, respectively, for the 1969 Western film of the same name – are being chased by Pinkerton Detective Agency agents and a group of Bolivian soldiers dead-set on bringing the two in to answer for their numerous train robberies, murders and general criminal mischief.
In the film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid try to make their escape along a river, trying to lose their pursuers in stands of bull pine and sandstone outcroppings. But their luck runs out when they become stranded on a cliff above the river and cornered from all sides by the lawmen on their tail. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, so to speak, the two debate jumping or fighting their way out.
After a back-and-forth between Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, they eventually decide to jump, narrowly avoiding a bloody firefight.
“I can’t swim!” Redford’s character snaps.
“Well, the fall will probably kill you first,” Newman’s character replies, just before the two leap.
Redford died on Tuesday. His movies, including “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “Jeremiah Johnson,” were notable additions to the Western movie genre, said author and historian Fred Wildfang. Wildfang’s book, “Hollywood of the Rockies,” chronicled the locations that brought some of those movies to life – including Durango.
“I didn't meet Redford, but he was here (in Durango) filming part of ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’” Wildfang said.
Wildfang said the scene where the characters jump off the cliffs was shot just north of Baker’s Bridge, right at the end of the section of the Animas River known as the Rockwood Box (though the actual jump into the river was performed by two stuntmen in a river in California).
In another scene, Wildfang said, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad sets the stage for a train robbery where the duo blow a train car to smithereens with dynamite, prompting Redford to ad-lib “think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?”
“’Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ I think, is one of the best Westerns ever filmed,” Wildfang said.
Wildfang said Durango is the perfect place for filming Western movies, and has drawn filmmakers, actors and musicians ranging from Marilyn Monroe, Redford and, more recently, country singer Charley Crockett due to its old-West feel and rugged surroundings.
Though Wildfang never met Redford, he had met Paul Newman and was good friends with Charlie Dierkop, who was in the movie’s opening scene and a longtime judge of the Durango Independent Film Festival. From all accounts, Wildfang said, Redford was friendly, genuine and kind.
“You can really identify with him,” Wildfang said. “He was, you know, the cool guy and a real heartthrob – and a great actor.”
Wildfang said Redford’s role in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” inspired him to make the Sundance Film Festival – a name inspired directly by the historical character immortalized by Redford, and, in part, Durango.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
