Adventures in the Screen Trade (26 page)

CUT TO

John Macon, breathing the biggest sigh of relief anyone ever saw and

CUT TO Sundance, standing now, his guns quiet.

CUT TO

Butch and Sundance. Butch glances at Macon's gun belt for a moment, then shakes his head.

BUTCH

(to Sundance as they head for the door)

Like I been telling you-over the hill. (and they are gone)

So now we've seen the Kid in action and we know one thing: You don't want to mess with him. The man is a bomb, capable of exploding at any time. Handle with care.

Although we learn something about Butch and the two men together, this is essentially Sundance's introductory moment.

SCENE THREE: THE RIDE TO HOLE-IN-THE-WALL.

This is the first time they've been alone. And it may not seem like much, but there's a lot we learn.

Butch hates what he's doing: "How can I be so damn stupid as to keep coming back here?"

This is not news to Sundance: "What's your idea this time?" Clearly "this time" means he's heard this kind of hitching before.

And now-essential-the First mention of where the movie's going to take us: this lunatic destination, Bolivia. Sundance is no genius: "What's Bolivia?" Butch is not afraid of Sundance exploding around him. "Bolivia is a country, stupid." Butch is also no genius: "Bolivia is a country, stupid - in Central or South America, one or the other." I mean, he's the one who brought up the subject, and his knowledge of geography is anything but encyclopedic.

Sundance has a crucial setup line: "Why don't we just go to Mexico instead?" Crucial because it gives Butch a chance to explain about Bolivia, and also because it wasn't unheard of for a Western movie to deal with Mexico. All the Alamo retellings, the Villa stories. In other words, Sundance is saying, "Well,

moving someplace foreign isn't all that weird." He's greasing a path we have no idea we're going to follow.

Butch's reply is not just the most important line in the scene but one of the most vital in the movie. He talks about the California gold rush-which everyone knows about. And then he says, "When I say Bolivia, you think California."

That line gives the reader something to cling to. It makes comprehensible, even kind of logical, what's going to come.

And just as Butch isn't afraid of Sundance, Sundance doesn't have a lot of respect for Butch's notions. He laughs and says, "You just keep thinking, Butch, that's what you're good at."

At this point, we're eight minutes into the movie and what do we know? Times are hard, maybe a change wouldn't be a bad idea. Sundance is famous and deadly. But we don't really know a whole lot about Butch yet. Or who and what they are. And what makes their relationship different and special.

SCENE FOUR: THE KICK IN THE BALLS.

Just as the blackjack game was Sundance's scene, this is where we really meet Butch Cassidy.

He returns to Hole-in-the-Wall to find that his leadership has . been usurped. He has headed a famous gang, but now the giant, Logan, has assumed control.

Butch tries first what he always tries first: to talk his way out of trouble. That attempt fails.

He is forced into a knife fight and we're into one of the staples of Western films: mano a mano, good versus evil, honorable virtue versus unspeakable vice, maybe to the death. But just before combat, Butch begins talking about what rules they should follow, and while Logan is distracted, Butch kicks him full out in the balls.

I don't know if anyone who never saw the movie in a theatre can-appreciate the reaction the kick-in-the-balls moment got. There was this huge gasp, followed by the enormous laugh of relief and surprise. Especially, I think, surprise.

Western heroes didn't fight sneaky. Gary Cooper would have turned in his badge before he stooped to such a thing. Can you imagine Randolph Scott doing it? Or Gene Autry?

And then after the fight Butch not only doesn't show any anger, he decides to do exactly what his enemy had suggested they do all along. He is, above all else, a totally practical man doing his best. A leader, without rancor, as affable a fellow as you're apt to meet. I think, after this, you really like him.

This scene underscores again the theme: Everything's harder than it used to be. And there are probably other odds and ends I could mention.

But what the scene does most of all, is set the Butch-Sundance relationship. From here on, hopefully, we know we're into something different.

Logan, of all people, sets it in motion. He has told Butch that he gives the orders, then suddenly he says, "This don't concern you."

He means, of course, Sundance.

Logan goes on, ordering Butch to tell Sundance to stay out of their fight. So far we're merely underscoring what we've seen in the card game: Sundance is Dangerous.

Butch's reply though is odd: "He goes his own way, like always."

Now, a few moments later, Logan has his knife out and Butch begins to take off his jacket. He goes to Sundance, who is remote, seated on his horse, above it all.

Logan is a massive man, incredibly powerful. Butch makes an attempt at ajoke: "Bet on Logan." Sundance replies: "I would, but who'd bet on you?" Then comes what for me is the essential exchange of the picture.

LOGAN

(calling out to the Kid) Sundance-when we're done, If he's dead, you're welcome to stay,

BUTCH

(quietly, to Sundance) Listen, I don't want to be a sore loser or anything, but when we're done. If I'm dead, kill him.

SUBDANCK

(this 13 said to Logan but In answer to Butch) Love to.

When we were in preproduction and rehearsal, there was more pressure over this exchange than any other-the producers insisted it be altered: The audience had to know, they felt, that in the crunch, Sundance would come to the rescue. I said I thought that ruined everything. They wouldn't go away: Do you expect the audience to believe he's just going to sit there and watch Butch get killed? I said Butch didn't get killed.

They wanted something-a wink, maybe, some indication from one hero to the other, anything that would make it clear: "I won't let you get hurt."

Director George Roy Hill was on my side and we carried the day. I can't articulate even now why I felt so strongly. The pro- ducers had an absolutely valid point. But the spine of the picture was the two guys. And they had to be appealing, sure: but they also had to be different and special. They were all we had going for us. And I truly believe that Butch's not asking for help and Sundance not offering any was what cemented their relationship.

From here on, I hoped, the audience would be asking, "Who are those guys?"

Two quick remembrances, one of rehearsal, one from open- ing week.

In the middle of the movie is a twenty-seven-minute se- quence where Butch and Sundance are chased and almost cap- tured by the Superposse. As a result of their narrow escape, Butch decides it's time for South America.

In the middle of the chase is a short scene where they go to see an old sheriff, Bledsoe, to ask his help in getting them to enlist in the Army and fight in the Spanish-American War. Bledsoe, who is a friend, tells them they're crazy, it's too late, that they're both going to die bloody and all they can do is choose where.

During rehearsal, Newman was bothered not by the length of the chase but by the fact that it was misstructured. His contention was that the scene with Bledsoe should not be where it was but at the end-Bledsoe should be the icing on the cake, the one that finally makes them believe they must leave the country.

Newman is totally pro, always prepared, always giving. (During shooting when his people were upset that Redford was being given too much of the picture, too many close-ups, etc., etc., Newman couldn't have cared less.)

He is also, to use an image he says of himself, a terrier. When he gets hold of something, he simply will not lei it go. And he was absolutely convinced that the Bledsoe scene was out of or- der.

George Hill was equally convinced that it was not; if the chase as it was didn't make them want to get the hell out, an old sheriff telling them wouldn't make any goddam difference. Hill, a Marine pilot who served in both World War II and Korea, is not known for giving ground easily.

We rehearsed for two weeks, and on the first day, Newman idly mentioned that he thought, perhaps, we might shift the order of the Bledsoe scene. Brief discussion. Negative decision. On to the next.

The following morning Newman appeared, having done a good deal of thought at night. The Bledsoe scene was definitely wrong. It was not wrong, Hill replied. More discussion, a bit more heated. (The rehearsals of Batch, by the way, were as enjoyable as any lime I've had in movies. Katherine Ross was achingly pretty and tended to be quiet. Redford was funny, in a counterpunching way. The rest of us were nothing if not vocal. Such was our sound that an article appeared in a Los Angeles paper staling that rehearsals were so violent that the movie had been postponed.)

Logistically, we were alone, sealed around a table in the middle of an enormous sound stage. Far across this basketball-court-sized room, a guy who I suppose might be called a gofer sat in a chair, waiting to be called on if anything was needed to help rehearsals along. He was old, and he dozed a lot. There wasn't much for him to do.

Every day now, the argument between Newman and Hill took up more and more time. The word Bledsoe began to lose all meaning, we were that punchy. Newman would not give up and Hill would not surrender. At one point Redford suggested we retitle the whole fucking movie The Bledsoe Scene.

On and on Newman and Hill would go at it. Each day Newman would bring in fresh arguments buttressing his position and Hill would one by one do his best to demolish them. Once they were into the Bledsoe scene, nothing could make them slop. Almost nothing.

Toward the end of the first week, Newman and Hill were at it again, tearing into each other, back and forth, on and on-until we were all aware of this strange, new, and altogether remarkable sound.

The gofer, way across the room, in his sleep, had let fly with this whopper of a fart. Newman and Hill registered the event, paused briefly, then went back into combat. But the fart continued.

Now they paused a second time, all of us staring at this old sleeping guy. Newman and Hill turned back to each other again-

-the fart went on and on. (All true, I swear.) Now we were all silent. Still it continued.

Everyone was now aware of the fact that we were in the presence of a phenomenal physical feat. Amazing. We all had to break after that. The old guy slept on, eventually lapsing into silence. He never knew that he alone had the power to put the Bledsoe scene to rest, at least for that day. . . .

Butch opened in New York to what might optimistically be called "mixed" notices. The New Yorker, for example, entitled its review "The Bottom of the Pit."

I think all of us involved liked the film a lot. We thought we might have something, and Hill and I, I know, were both in despair. What helped change my mood was something that: happened the first weekend it was in release.

A rotten October afternoon, drizzling and cold. A friend of mine was wailing in line to see it, and as the preceding show broke, a number of people piled out of the theatre. And one of them, a guy who'd just seen the movie, stopped and looked at the others wailing in the rain. Then he cupped his hands and shouted out the following: "Hey-it's really worth it."

And hey, when I heard that story, I thought for the first time that we really might have something after alt. . . .

CHAPTER SIX

The Thing of It Is...

The Thing of It Is . . . was the screenplay I wrote following Butch Cassidy. It's a movie that never got made. Not remotely unusual. What made this experience unique for me is that this was a movie that not only almost but didn't happen- -it didn't happen twice.

"The first time began with Robert Redford. Butch had been shot but was months from being released, and his career was still in the scuffling stage.

Someone, I think Natalie Wood, had given him The Thing of it Is. . . , an unknown novella of mine. He'd read it, liked it, wanted to do it as a movie (assuming he reacted positively to the screenplay). But since there was no studio interest in the project, and neither of us was remotely bankable, the suggestion was to get a director and a female star and then approach a studio. In other words, if we could pull it off, we could beat the system.

The initial step, of course, was that I write the screenplay "on spec." In other words, without a contract, do it for free. I said I would immediately, for three reasons.

One: Writing "on spec" was something I'd always done. I wrote my first novel, The Temple of Gold, in 1956, and it was not until Magic, twenty years later, that I had a contract for an unwritten book. The reason I worked that way was probably neurotic: I had (and still have) the wild fear that I'll get halfway through a book and then want to stop. But if you're under con- tract, you can't.

Two: I knew Redford a little, had had a wonderful experience with him in Butch.

Three: He was perfect for the part. Briefly, The Thing of It Is . . . is a tough romantic comedy. It concerns a young couple who go to Europe with their only child to try and save their marriage. The wife is a stunning-looking WASP type who has married Amos, the husband, against her family's wishes. She is rich, and he, when they married, wasn't.

Worse, he was in the arts. A songwriter. When the story opens he has become enormously successful, having written a "Hello Dolly! "-type smash with a title song that is the number-one hit in the country.

Except it's a rotten song and Amos hates it. But he is a secret-keeper, Amos is, and that's one of his secrets. Another, more important, is that even though his last name is McCracken and he looks gentile as hell, he is, in fact, half Jewish. Not only was Redford the right age and all the rest, he was also, at this time in his career, a' sensational comic actor. As I mentioned earlier, he had scored a tremendous success as the male lead in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park on Broadway, a role he repeated in the somewhat less-well-received film version. For the part of Amos-quirky, funny, secretive- I couldn't think of anyone better.