Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973):
This is one of the great double-bills of all time for fans of the buddy movie. Butch Cassidy gave us a superstar we already knew (Newman) and a superstar in the making (Redford), and George Roy Hill’s direction was mannered but never too tight, letting us see and hear two fine actors at the top of their game, perhaps never lighter nor more effortless than when working with each other. The Sting brought these three together again and added the magnificent Robert Shaw, with a large and excellent cast of supporting players that included Eileen Brennan, Charles Durning, Ray Walston and Robert Earl Jones — the father of James Earl Jones. The screenplay here isn’t quite up to William Goldman’s work in Butch Cassidy, but Marvin Hamlisch’s Joplin-inspired score seals the deal. Unlike the distracting Bacharach musical sequences in Butch Cassidy, ragtime is a perfect echo of the darkness lying hidden just beneath the film’s light tone. Who are those guys?
