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Butch Cassidy, Part 1


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Butch Cassidy, Part 1

By Roger McGrath - SEPTEMBER 06, 2018

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Starring Paul Newman and Robert RedfordButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was a smash success when it was released in 1969.  Surprisingly, the movie generally follows the actual events of Butch Cassidy’s outlaw life.  It’s a fun romp from beginning to end.  Most of the casting is not bad for Hollywood: Believe it or not, the real Etta Place was just as beautiful as Katharine Ross.  However, Paul Newman was nothing like the real Butch Cassidy.  Although the real Cassidy had a great sense of humor, an infectious grin, and could be playful, he was a rugged, square-jawed, ornery outlaw inured to all the hardships of the Old West.  Newman got the humor and playfulness right, but he couldn’t project the other characteristics that made Cassidy a respected and formidable leader.  For me that’s the failing of the movie, but Newman’s Cassidy is the image of Butch Cassidy held by most in America today.

Butch Cassidy was born Robert LeRoy Parker in Beaver, Utah, on Friday the 13th of April 1866.  He was the first of 13 children born to Maximillian and Ann Parker.  It was a Mormon home.  :snip:   https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2018/October/43/10/magazine/article/10845479/     

 

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Butch Cassidy, Part 2

By Roger McGrath - NOVEMBER 08, 2018

A station agent tried to telegraph Price, Utah—the direction the outlaws were headed—but Butch Cassidy and Elzy Lay had cut the wires.  The paymaster had the train’s engine uncoupled.  Men grabbed a variety of weapons and jumped aboard.  The locomotive steamed down the narrow gorge of Price Canyon right past the unseen robbers, who were changing horses behind a section house.  Cassidy and Lay escaped by a circuitous route, eventually doubling back and reaching Brown’s Hole some $8,000 richer.  Posses from Castle Gate and nearby Huntington became so confused that they wound up shooting at each other.

The robberies at Montpelier and Castle Gate demonstrated that Butch Cassidy had brought to perfection techniques that he had learned while riding with Tom McCarty.  Butch was taught how to ride, rope, shoot, and steal horses by Mike Cassidy, and then how to rob banks—and, equally important, how to escape—by Tom McCarty.

Cassidy stationed relays of horses along a planned escape route.  Several weeks before a robbery he would train the horses to be used in the getaway.  Well-bred animals were selected, grain fed, and exercised rigorously.  For the robbery sure-footed, stocky horses of great short-distance speed were selected.  :snip: https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2018/December/43/12/magazine/article/10845838/

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