Daily Dialogue — August 29, 2016
Butch Cassidy: I’ve got a great idea where we should go next.
Sundance Kid: I don’t want to hear it.
Butch Cassidy: You’ll change your mind when I tell ya’.
Sundance Kid: Shut up. It’s your great ideas that got us into this mess. I never want to hear another one of your great ideas. Ever!
Sundance wraps a bandana around Butch’s wounded hand, then —
Butch Cassidy: Australia.
Sundance shoots Butch a look.
Butch Cassidy: I thought that secretly you wanted to know so I told you.
Sundance Kid: That’s your great idea?
Butch Cassidy: The latest in a long line. We get out of here alive, we go to Australia. Goodbye, Bolivia. Hello to Australia.
Sundance Kid: Australia is no better than here.
Butch Cassidy: That’s all you know.
Sundance Kid: Name me one thing.
Butch Cassidy: They speak English in Australia.
Sundance Kid: They do?
Butch Cassidy: That’s right, smart guy, so we wouldn’t be foreigners. We’d blend in more easily. They got horses in Australia and thousands of miles of countryside that we can hide out in, and good climate. Nice beaches. You can learn to swim.
Sundance Kid: No. Swimming isn’t important. What about the banks?
Butch Cassidy: Very easy. Easy, ripe, and luscious.
Sundance Kid: The banks or the women?
Butch Cassidy: Well, once you get one you get the other.
They laugh.
Sundance Kid: But… Australia is quite a long way from here.
Butch Cassidy: Oh, please! Everything with you has got to be perfect!
Sundance Kid: I just don’t want to get there and realize that it stinks, that’s all.
Butch Cassidy: At least think about it.
Sundance Kid: All right… I’ll think about it.
— Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), written by William Goldman
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Blame.
Trivia: According to screenwriter William Goldman, his screenplay originally was entitled “The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy.” Both Steve McQueen and Paul Newman read the script at approximately the same time and agreed to do it, with McQueen playing the Sundance Kid. When McQueen dropped out, the names reversed in the title, as Newman was a superstar.
Dialogue On Dialogue: The banter between these two characters throughout the movie is brilliant and this exchange is a great example. Here they are all shot-up when Butch wants to mention his next great idea. Sundance won’t have any of it, blaming Butch for the mess they’re in. But then, “Australia”. Butch is off and running with his grand scheme to a skeptical Sundance. There’s even a nice callback about swimming. Meanwhile we, the audience, know our two anti-heroes are about to get blasted to kingdom come by a veritable army of Bolivian soldiers. Such a great final scene.