MovieChat Forums > Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) Discussion > The events in the film occured only 60 y...

The events in the film occured only 60 years before it came out.

posted 10 years ago by Zando777
11 replies | jump to latest

I saw this in the early 70's. Because it was about the Wild West, it seemed like a very far away, purely historical era. No connection to the modern world.

However, looking at it now, and researching the real events, I see that Cassidy and Sundance had their last shootout in 1908 -- only 61 years before the film came out. With the screenplay written even earlier.

This means that someone who actually RODE with the hole in the wall gang could still have potentially been alive to see the film when it came out. (In their 80's or 90's.)

And plenty of people who met/saw them as kids could've seen the film.

In other words, the Wild West really isn't that long ago or far away, even today.

(My stepfather is 90. He could have seen or met Civil War Veterans in the 1920's or early 30's. He could have met Wyatt Earp, who lived into the 20's.)

Bottom line, millions of Americans could still remember the era of 1898 - 1908 when this film came out. Making it a memory piece for them as well as historical fiction. I find that amazing.

It's the equivalent of a film about the mid-50's being made today.

[–] DrGlitterhouse 9 years ago

Life expectancies have risen since the 1960s. Eighty- and 90-year-olds were probably rarer back then than they are now, assuming they were in any condition to be going to the movies. Look at some old movies and notice how much frailer some of the actors in their 60s or 70s look in comparison to actors of the same age today. It's possible someone who rode in the Wild Bunch was able to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when it came out, but not likely.

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[–] Zando777 9 years ago

Life expectancies today aren't much higher than the late 60's. And most of the improvements over the past 70 years have related to preventing childhood deaths. In other words, there were plenty of people living into their 80's and 90's in the late 60's.

Bottom line, there weren't many people who rode with the Wild Bunch, and most probably died fairly young, due to their dangerous life. But there were almost certainly people who *met* them who were still alive in 1969, and saw the movie. That alone is amazing to me.

[–] raidersrockerjh 9 years ago

According to one of the trivia notes, the sister of Butch Cassidy often visited the movie set and was amazed at how accurately the script and Paul Newman portrayed her late brother.

[–] RobbieCalifornia 9 years ago

Good to hear that.

[–] greenbudgie 9 years ago

It's amazing how a lot of the western characters were still within living memory with a lot of westerns. Especially those made earlier than this one. When I first watched this type of Old West movies, I thought the characters were fictional.

[–] lexyladyjax 9 years ago

Sandoval, Butch Cassidy's aunt was a consultant on the film...or was she his niece? It's been a long time, I can't recall which she was but it was a relative who knew him personally.

William Goldman researched a.book for three years and then he decided to write a screenplay instead. A book came out after the film. That's where I got my information. I don't know what happened to the book, too many cross-country moves. It got away from me, I guess. I'd love to read it again.

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[–] Zando777 9 years ago

Couldn't have been an aunt, but possibly a niece.

[–] Burning_Sosobra 8 years ago

You made some good points OP, it's true that that period in time wasn't all that long ago. Interestingly there are 3 or 4 people, just women of course, that were born in 1899 that are still living today. Once the last of them dies, so will the last living links to the nineteenth century.

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[–] activista 8 years ago

Two of those women just passed away recently---one of them in my hometown.

[–] marktayloruk (2502) 3 years ago

Was speculation that Etta might have still been alive!

[–] liscarkat (18388) 10 months ago

That is interesting to contemplate. It would be like the mid-1960s from today's (2024) point of view.