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.
Revealing mistake: In the scene where Strother Martin is leading Butch and Sundance back with the payroll Strother is shot dead. While he is on the ground Butch and Sundance scramble down near his body. You can see Strother's eye twitching from the kicked up dust.
Factual error: Near the end of the film Butch is complaining about the living conditions they have to endure - jungles, swamps, snakes, night work - and Sundance sarcastically retorts "Bitch, bitch, bitch!" In 1908 the term meant just what it literally means: "Female dog." It did not adopt its current meaning of "complain" until much later. At the time the film is set - outside the context of "female dog" - it was considered to be a serious obscenity, and it would not have been used to describe something as ordinary as someone moaning about his living conditions.
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.
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