Thoughts On Paper Moon and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Saw both of these last nite at my church movie night. I had seen the latter before but it was more than ten years ago so by the end I'd forgotten exactly what happened and was as much on my edge of the seat as the first time. The writing and acting on this movie are just breath taking.
Paper Moon was great. I see now why some have spoken so highly of Tatum O'Neals tour de force as the lead actress at age 7 I sort of cringed each time she'd be shown smoking not because I thought it was real I am not that dense) but because it made me think of how much it would freak out the anti-smoking folks if that were to happen in a movie today. It also reminded me how much I love the book and movie of Thank You for Smoking.
It was interesting to see Madeline Kahn in a serious role (previously I only see her in comedies and satires like Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein) -and had no idea she'd also played straight, serious roles as well.
This morning I read the Wikipedia entries and Roger Ebert's reviews on both movies because I like to hear the trivia stuff and compare opinions with my favorite critic.
However, I think Ebert completely missed the mark in his review of Butch Cassidy, which he says

You can see, in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," the bones of the good movie that could have been made about them.
But unfortunately, this good movie is buried beneath millions of dollars that were spent on "production values" that wreck the show. This is often the fate of movies with actors in the million-dollar class, like Newman. Having invested all that cash in the superstar, the studio gets nervous and decides to spend lots of money to protect its investment.

Ebert does get one thing right – the criticism of the ending:

And then the violent, bloody ending is also a mistake; apparently it was a misguided attempt to copy "Bonnie and Clyde." But the ending doesn't belong on "Butch Cassidy," and we don't believe it, and we walk out of the theater wondering what happened to that great movie we were seeing until an hour ago.

BTW, if you have not seen Bonnie and Clyde you need to – it's one of the best early attempts at the type of stylized violence that thanks to directors like Quentin Tarantino are so in vogue these days
A few trivia tidbits: Director Peter Bogdanovich wanted to change the name and after hearing the song "It's Only a Paper Moon (by Billy Rose, Yip Harburg, and Harold Arlen)" had an idea. Wikipedia then says:

Seeking advice from his close friend and mentor Orson Welles, Bogdanovich listed Paper Moon as a possible alternative. Welles responded — "That title is so good, you shouldn't even make the picture, you should just release the title!"

The Simpsons referenced the movie in an episode, according to Wikipedia

"it is referenced by name when Homer Simpson and Bart Simpson try to trick Ned Flanders into receiving a fake Bible by saying that his deceased wife, Maude ordered it before she died. This prompts Ned to say after a few moments, "Wait a minute, this sounds like that movie Paper Moon...".

Switching movies, according to Wikipedia,

Goldman's script, originally called "The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy,""was purchased by 20th Century Fox for $400,000. The two starring roles were originally given to Newman and Steve McQueen, but McQueen left after failing to come to an agreement about which actor would receive top billing. Warren Beatty was considered for one of the lead roles, and Marlon Brando, who at the time had minimal box-office draw, was considered at one point due to his role in an earlier Western, One-Eyed Jacks. At one point, Max Olsen and Paul Newman were expected to star, and they discussed using the new "staggered but equal billing" later introduced for The Towering Inferno. Eventually, Newman and Robert Redford were chosen, but initially Newman was to play Sundance and Redford Cassidy. 20th Century Fox did not want Redford to play the part, but director George Roy Hill insisted. Redford later noted that this film catapulted him to stardom and changed his career forever.

My god, can you imagine Brando in one of those leading roles? I sure can't.

In the scene where a railroad car is blown up, the railroad car was built for the scene out of balsa wood and toothpicks. The budget only allowed for one take, and therefore an unusually high amount of explosives was used. The explosion was huge, and the line "Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch?" is reported to be an ad lib, according to locals who observed.

From Wikipedia:

" In the US version of The Office, the character Dwight (in a moment of comedy) compares Michael Scott to Mozart and himself to Butch Cassidy (who he says are legendary friends).

All in all, both are great movies, worth checking out and this was a good example of a time when I got more out of it after reading the Wikipedia trivia.