Continuity mistake: In the bicycle riding scene where Butch lets Etta ride on the handlebars, you can see her feet are resting on some sort of pegs protruding from the axle on each side of the bicycle wheel. When she is not riding, the pegs are not there.
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Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969)
1 continuity mistake - chronological order
Directed by: George Roy Hill
Starring: Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Katharine Ross, Strother Martin
Revealing mistake: In the opening sequence when Sundance shoots the gun belt off the card player, the film was cut to make the quick draw appear faster. You can see Butch's image jump across the screen in the background.
[After blowing up an entire train car while only intending to blow open the door.]
Sundance: Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?
Trivia: Katherine Ross, (Etta Place) was caught operating a camera, filming some footage of the arrival of the train carrying the "super posse". In the late 60s the US film business was strict, closed shop union (to a great extent it still is) and Ross operating a camera was against every rule there is. Several senior crew members demanded her dismissal from the film but producer John Foreman and Unit Production Manager Lloyd Anderson, aware of the fact that a lot of scenes with her in it would have to be reshot at absurd expense, argued for a compromise to which the union agreed - none of the footage she shot would be used (it wasn't) and she would be asked not to be on set while scenes in which she was not involved were shot. Her gender was totally irrelevant to the issue. This is confirmed in William Goldman's excellent memoir, "Which Lie Did I Tell?"
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Answer: It's to show how Butch and Etta care about each other as friends and that Etta is not just someone Butch has to put up with because she's Sundance's woman. A strong bond unites the three of them.
raywest ★