Butch & Sundance: The Early Days Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Butch & Sundance: The Early Days Blu-ray Movie Review

Snowflakes keep fallin' on their heads.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 12, 2013

Note: This film is currently available only in this bundle: Movies 4 You: Timeless Westerns

The sixties and seventies were a time of transition for one of the hoariest genres in film, the western. What had once been a reliable box office attraction through the early fifties at least had found its mojo with audiences seriously depleted by the glut of small screen oaters which invaded television from the mid-fifties on, as well as perhaps just a natural attrition of interest caused by so many westerns having been released for so long, and by the time the early sixties rolled around, huge hit westerns were actually the exception rather than the norm. For every How the West Was Won (which was actually marketed as much as an “event” movie as it was an actual western), there were scores of other films, some with major stars and directors attached, which just fell by the wayside. Things seemed to be looking up when 1969 produced two unlikely western hits that couldn’t have been more different, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Wild Bunch. But audiences can be fickle aggregations, and while a number of fascinating westerns were made in the wake of these two hallmarks, few actually ended up connecting with audiences in any overwhelming way. The four films collected on this perhaps odd seeming two Blu-ray set from Timeless Media Group (an imprint of Shout! Factory) all fall into that less than stellar category, even if each of them has at least some redeeming characteristics (and sometimes much more than that). All of these films failed to ignite at the box office, and in fact probably were seen in such venues as drive-ins and then on various television broadcasts through the years. While they appear to be a fairly disparate bunch, spanning the years from 1964’s Rio Conchos to 1979’s Butch & Sundance: The Early Years, there are at least a couple of linking elements here, including three scores by the inestimable Jerry Goldsmith and two appearances by Jim Brown (including his screen debut). The four together provide a rather interesting look both at what went right and wrong with the western during this transitional era.

As mentioned above, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid was one of the greatest successes of its era, one which reinvigorated the western genre and which seemed to connect with the late sixties zeitgeist in a perhaps totally unexpected way. And so of course there must have been Hollywood bean counters trying to cash in on this box office bonanza almost as soon as the figurative dust had settled. But as anyone who’s seen the film will realize, there was one major problem with attempting to make a follow up to this outing (spoiler alert): the two heroes die at the end. What’s an avaricious Hollywood type to do? Since a sequel obviously wasn’t possible (unless Butch and Sundance were to maraud through heaven or hell, depending on their eventual destination), a prequel was the only suitable solution. There are some incidental anecdotal references to Butch & Sundance: The Early Days actually being the first film to utilize this now common term, but they may be apocryphal.

It took a rather longish decade after the premiere of the progenitor for Butch & Sundance: The Early Days to arrive at theaters, which might be at least one reason for the film’s failure to connect at the box office. The talent here is rather remarkable, including the film’s writer, William Goldman, on board as executive producer (and evidently uncredited contributor to the screenplay), the legendary Laszlo Kovacs as cinematographer and Richard Lester as director. Stepping into Paul Newman’s shoes was a young Tom Berenger, who actually rather surprisingly resembles Newman in this film and who obviously studied the actor’s mannerisms and delivery style when forging his own character. The Robert Redford role is essayed here by erstwhile Carrie prom date and future Greatest American Hero William Katt. The supporting cast is filled with colorful turns by a variety of fantastic actors like Peter Weller, Brian Dennehy, Christopher Lloyd, John Schuck and Jeff Corey. And while the film is occasionally rather breezy, it’s also overly forced and never quite as much fun as it really should be.

While Butch & Sundance: The Early Days is inarguably better than it has any right to be (and better than many of the critics claimed it was when it was first released), there’s still the not so faint whiff of money grubbing executives lurking about this film, especially since it’s so oddly calculated to play of the allure of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, while straying even further from the truth than that film did. The two future outlaws “meet cute” in a barroom brawl that becomes even more violent and which tries to recreate the casual chaos of the George Roy Hill film, although without Hill’s ultimate sense of control and direction. It’s a flaw this amiable enough outing makes again and again as it proceeds through a series of anecdotal, often lightly amusing, sequences that depict the initial befuddlement of the pair slowly turning toward more “professional” thievery.

Perhaps the biggest problem confronting Butch & Sundance: The Early Days is not its inescapable comparison to the first film, but in fact the time when it was released. A lot had changed between 1969 and 1979. The first film seemed like a charming respite after the tumultuous Vietnam protests, the Civil Rights riots, and a year of horrible political assassinations. Ten years later the world was a much different place, not to state the obvious. While at least some of the post-Watergate paranoia had warn off, we were knee deep in the Carter era “malaise”, and the charming exploits of two would be robbers just didn’t seem to fill the same need as the first film did.

Still, Butch & Sundance: The Early Days is filled with winning performances, including some nicely comic turns by John Schuck and Christopher Lloyd. Lester also makes use of some stunning locations, including what is arguably the film’s best sequence, in the snow strewn hills of Telluride, Colorado. For a few, brief shining moments, this prequel manages to be something more than a charming echo of the first film.

Butch & Sundance: The Early Days Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Butch & Sundance: The Early Days is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Timeless Media Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is generally a nice looking high definition presentation, though it's plagued by some odd, intermittent softness that seems to come and go without much logic. Some of the scenes are at least decently sharp and well defined, as in the opening outdoor scene where Butch tries to retrieve his gun from Sundance, but other moments, like a couple of sequences in dance halls, are really gauzy, and it doen't seem to be a function of the lighting or lenses utilized. In total, this is a well above average looking transfer, with nicely saturated color and generally consistent contrast. There is quite a bit of grain evident in some of the darkest moments.

Butch & Sundance: The Early Days Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Butch & Sundance: The Early Days features a DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track presented via DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. This is a nicely rendered track which presents dialogue and effects very cleanly and clearly. The film is notable for its rather unusual score by jazz great Patrick Williams, wisely choosing to establish a completely different musical vocabulary from Burt Bacharach. Williams perhaps strangely uses a quasi-Celtic sounding score quite a bit of the time, with a main jig theme that is recast in various ways throughout the film. The music benefits immensely from this lossless setting and really helps to support the film's effectiveness.

Butch & Sundance: The Early Days Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080i; 1:43)


• Interview with William Katt (1080p; 11:47) finds Katt waxing nostalgic about the shoot. He talks about the locations, including Telluride, and the camaraderie among the cast and crew.

Butch & Sundance: The Early Days Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Projects like Butch & Sundance: The Early Days reek of such desperation that they're usually just dismissed out of hand as worthless money grubbing exercises. But this film is really quite enjoyable most of the time, aided by breezy performances, Lester's assured directorial hand and some nicely scenic locations. The shadow of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid simply looms too large for this film to ever really muster the requisite energy it needs, but taken on its own smaller scale merits, it's much, much better than one might initially expect. This Blu-ray features very good video and audio and comes Recommended.