Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head
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| "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" | |||||||||
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| Single by B. J. Thomas | |||||||||
| Released | 1969 | ||||||||
| Length | 2:57 | ||||||||
| Writer(s) | Hal David and Burt Bacharach | ||||||||
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"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" is a song written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach for the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song. David and Bacharach also won Best Original Score. The version by B. J. Thomas was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States in January 1970 for four weeks and the first number-one single of the 1970s. It also spent seven weeks atop the U.S. adult contemporary chart.[1]
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The song was recorded in seven takes, after Bacharach expressed dissatisfaction with the first six.
.Ray Stevens had been first offered the opportunity to record the song for the motion picture, but turned it down. He chose instead to record "Sunday Morning Coming Down," which was written by Kris Kristofferson. Bob Dylan is also supposed to have been approached for the song, but he too reportedly turned down the offer.[2]
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The song is featured in the Leslie Nielsen movie Spy Hard, which parodies the scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where the song plays. It also is featured on the soundtracks of Forrest Gump and the superhero film, Spider-Man 2, in the latter accentuating Peter Parker's blissful mood after abandoning his Spider-Man identity and its responsibilities. Most recently it was used in the Kevin Smith film Clerks II. It was also sung in The Simpsons episode, "Duffless". Also, the first episode of the second season from Grey's Anatomy is named after the song.
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B.J. Thomas's version was listed at #12 on Billboard's Greatest Songs of all time.[1]
Covers
The song has been covered numerous times, most notably by the Rat Pack. The Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers maintain it in their repertoire of live songs, playing it as part of an acoustic set during concerts. The band recorded a version of the song complete with trumpet solo by their drummer Sean Moore. This was the first piece of music the band recorded after the disappearance of guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards, and saw release on the 1995 charity album Help. This version also appears on their 2003 B-sides and rarities compilation album Lipstick Traces (A Secret History of Manic Street Preachers). The Manics further referenced the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with a b-side song called "Sepia". It includes the lines: "And just like the moment in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid / I'm perpetually stuck in a sepia film / But bleeding inside I manage to keep it all in".
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It has also been covered by French singer Sacha Distel (whose version was a hit in the United Kingdom as well as France)..
Johnny Mathis covered this song in 1970 on his LP Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head.
The Four Tops featured a cover of the song on their album Changing Times in 1970.
Paul Mauriat recorded it by his Grand Orchestra it 1973. This version was only "Raindrops Keep Falling" cover known in USSR.
Delroy Wilson recorded a reggae version for the song that doesn't appear on any of his official albums; the record can be found on 7" and is considered rare.
Mute Beat also recorded a reggae version for their 1989 album March.
The Flaming Lips covered this song on their 1996 Brainville EP. Ben Folds Five also covered the song for the 1998 Burt Bacharach tribute TV special and soundtrack One Amazing Night. In 2005 Australian band Jebediah covered the song for Triple J's Like a Version compilation.
In 1998, Shonen Knife covered it as part of the Big Deal Recording Artists Perform The Songs Of Burt Bacharach project.
The former football player and actor David Ginola sang a rather memorable version of this on Stars in Their Eyes.
Dionne Warwick has collaborated with Kelis on a cover of this for her 2006 duets album.
Barry Manilow covered this song on his 2006 album The Greatest Songs of the Sixties.
Perry Como recorded the song for his album, It's Impossible.
In 2008, Niki Chow & Patrick Tang have sung a song with this melody. It's called "Believing in Fairy Stories", and it is the end-of-episode song for The King Of Snooker, a drama series that they have both starred in.[3]
Other references
- In the Internet Series Unforgotten Realms, Douglas sings this song before Sir Schmoopy falls on him from above.
- In the book The Lightning Thief, as Percy rides in the elevator, he hears, "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head, fallin' on my head..."
- The song "In the Cage" from Genesis' 1974 concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway incorporates a lyrical and musical reference to the song at one point.
References
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (1996). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 6th Edition (Billboard Publications)
- ^ A Song A Day - Raindrops Keeps Falling On My Head, Music Aloud
- ^ Niki Chow & Patrick Tang's version of Raindrops Keeps Falling On My Head
| Preceded by "Someday We'll Be Together" by Diana Ross & the Supremes | Billboard Hot 100 number one single January 3, 1970 (four weeks) | Succeeded by "I Want You Back" by The Jackson 5 |
| Preceded by "Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair | Academy Award for Best Original Song 1969 | Succeeded by "For All We Know" from Lovers and Other Strangers |
Categories: 1969 singles | B. J. Thomas songs | Best Song Academy Award winning songs | Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles | Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks number-one singles | Bobbie Gentry songs | Number-one singles in Australia | Number-one singles in Norway | Songs with lyrics by Hal David | Songs with music by Burt Bacharach | Soft rock songs
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | |
|---|---|
 film poster by Tom Beauvais | |
| Directed by | George Roy Hill |
| Produced by | John Foreman |
| Written by | William Goldman |
| Starring | Paul Newman Robert Redford Katharine Ross |
| Music by | Burt Bacharach (music) Hal David (lyrics) |
| Cinematography | Conrad L. Hall |
| Editing by | John C. Howard Richard C. Meyer |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | September 23, 1969 |
| Running time | 112 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Gross revenue | $102,118,287[2] |
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western film that tells the story of bank robbers Butch Cassidy (played by Paul Newman) and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid" (played by Robert Redford), based loosely on historical fact.
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The film was directed by George Roy Hill and produced at 20th Century Fox by John Foreman from a screenplay by William Goldman. The music score was by Burt Bacharach with song lyrics by Hal David. Along with Newman and Redford, the film stars Katharine Ross as Etta Place, and features Strother Martin, Henry Jones, Jeff Corey, Sam Elliott, Cloris Leachman, Ted Cassidy, Kenneth Mars and Donnelly Rhodes.
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With a box office of over US$100 million (equivalent to over $500 million in 2009 dollars[3]), it was the top grossing film of the year.[2] At the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970 the film won Oscars in four of the seven categories within which it had been nominated, including awards for its screenplay and cinematography. At the 24th British Academy Film Awards, the film received nine awards including Best Film. Years later, the film has been recognized on a half dozen of the American Film Institute's AFI 100 Years... series lists, including both editions of the "100 Years... 100 Movies" lists; it has been part of the United States National Film Registry since 2003.
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The film was originally rated M by the Motion Picture Association of America. It was re-rated PG when 20th Century Fox re-released the film in 1974.
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Plot
In the late 1890s Wyoming, Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford), the leaders of the Hole in the Wall Gang, are planning another bank robbery. As they return to their hideout in Hole-in-the-Wall, they find out that the gang has selected a new leader, Harvey Logan (Ted Cassidy). He challenges Butch to a knife fight, which Butch wins, using a ruse. Although Logan is defeated, Butch quickly embraces Logan's idea to rob the Union Pacific Flyer twice, agreeing with Logan that the second robbery would be unexpected and likely to involve even more money than the first.
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The first robbery goes very well and the marshal of the next town (Kenneth Mars) cannot manage to raise a posse. Butch and Sundance listen to his attempts from mere yards away, enjoying themselves on the balcony of a nearby brothel. Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), is introduced; both men vie for her attention as she also goes bike-riding with Butch during a dialogue-free musical interlude, accompanied by the Oscar-winning song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head."
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The second robbery goes wrong. Not only does Butch use too much dynamite to blow the safe, but a second train arrives, which is carrying a six-man posse that has been specially outfitted by E. H. Harriman to hunt Butch and Sundance. The gang flees in multiple directions, with the posse only following Butch and Sundance. That night, they try hiding in a brothel in a nearby town, but are betrayed. They try riding double on a single horse in the hope that the posse will split up, but that fails. In another town, Butch and Sundance then try to arrange an amnesty with the help of the friendly Sheriff Bledsoe (Jeff Corey). But he tells them they have no chance of getting one, and that they will be hunted down until they are killed by the posse.
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Still on the run the next day, they muse about the identities of their pursuers. They fixate on Lord Baltimore, a famous Indian tracker, and Joe Lefors, a tough, renowned lawman, recognized at a distance by his white skimmer, or straw hat. After reaching the summit of a mountain, they find themselves trapped on the edge of a canyon. They decide to jump into the river far below, even though Sundance cannot swim and would prefer to fight. Later they arrive at Etta's house and learn that the posse has been paid to stay together until they kill the two of them. They decide it is time to leave the country and head to Bolivia, a destination Cassidy had spoken about earlier.
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They head to New York, then board a passenger ship, eventually arriving by train in a small Bolivian village. Sundance already resents the choice. Their first attempted bank robbery stops before it gets off the ground, as they are unable to speak Spanish. Etta teaches them the words they need. Their next robbery is clumsily executed, as Butch still needs his cribsheet. After more robberies, the duo, now known as the Bandidos Yanquis, are sought by the authorities all over Bolivia. In spite of their success, their confidence drops one evening when, while having dinner at a restaurant, they see a man wearing a white straw hat on the other side of the street, and fear that Lefors is once again after them. Butch suggests going straight, so as to not attract Lefors's attention.
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They get their first honest job as payroll guards in a mine, directed by an American named Percy Garris (Strother Martin). However, on their first working day, they are attacked. Garris is killed, and Butch and Sundance are forced to kill the Bolivian robbers, the first time Butch kills anyone. They decide to return to robbery. That evening, Etta decides to leave them, sensing that their days may be numbered.
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A few days later, Butch and Sundance attack a payroll mule train in the jungle, taking the money and the mule. When they arrive in the nearest town San Vicente, a stable boy recognizes the brand on the mule's backside and alerts the local police. While Butch and Sundance are eating at a local eatery, the police arrive and a climactic gun battle begins scaring away the nearby people.
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The two of them find shelter in a nearby empty house, but they're soon low on ammunition. Butch makes a run to the mule to fetch the rest of the ammunition while Sundance provides cover fire, but during his return they are both wounded. While they tend to their wounds in the house, about 100 soldiers of the Bolivian cavalry arrive and surround the place.
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The pair, unaware of the cavalry's arrival, discuss their next destination, with Butch pushing the English-speaking and wide-open continent of Australia. Butch tells Sundance that when they get outside and get to their horses to remember one thing. Before he can say it, Butch asks Sundance if he saw Lefors "out there". Sundance says that he did not and Butch replies "For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble."
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The film ends with a freeze frame sepia tone shot of the pair exiting the house firing their guns, while a voice is heard ordering: "¡Fuego!" (Spanish for "Fire!") accompanied by the sound of dozens of rifles being fired in three consecutive volleys.
Production
| | This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2009) |
According to the supplemental material on the Blu-ray disc, Goldman's script, originally called The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy, was purchased by Richard Zanuck at 20th Century Fox for $400,000, $200,000 more than the board of directors had authorized him to pay.[citation needed] 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. Jack Lemmon's production company JML had produced Cool Hand Luke in 1967. Paul Newman was grateful to Lemmon for his support, and offered him the Sundance Kid role,[citation needed] but Lemmon turned it down. He did not like riding horses, and he also felt he had already played too many aspects of the Sundance Kid's character before.[4] Warren Beatty was considered for one of the lead roles, and Marlon Brando, who at the time had minimal box-office draw,[citation needed] was considered at one point due to his role in an earlier Western, One-Eyed Jacks, which he had also directed and whose failure had disillusioned him with Hollywood. At one point, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman were expected to star, and they discussed using the new "staggered but equal billing" later introduced for The Towering Inferno.[citation needed] Eventually, Newman and Robert Redford were chosen, but initially Newman was to play Sundance (whom he did not resemble) and Redford Cassidy(whom he did not resemble either; he grew his mustache to give himself a resemblance to Sundance). 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 irreversibly changed his career.
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Butch Cassidy's outlaw gang was actually called "The Wild Bunch;" this was changed, in the film, to "The Hole-In-The-Wall Gang" to avoid confusion with Sam Peckinpah's recently released film The Wild Bunch.[citation needed]
Reception
Reviews
Vincent Canby called the film an "alternately absurd and dreamy saga that might have been fantasized by Truffaut's Jules and Jim and Catherine—before they grew up" and continued:[1]
- Even though the result is not unpleasant, it is vaguely disturbing—you keep seeing signs of another, better film behind gags and effects that may remind you of everything from Jules and Jim to Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch....In the center of the movie is a lovely, five-minute montage—done in sepia still photographs of the period—showing Butch, Sundance, and Etta having a brief fling in New York and making the steamer passage to South America. The stills tell you so much about the curious and sad relationship of the three people that it's with real reluctance that you allow yourself to be absorbed again into further slapstick adventures. There is thus, at the heart of Butch Cassidy, a gnawing emptiness that can't be satisfied by an awareness that Hill and Goldman probably knew exactly what they were doing—making a very slick movie.
Time magazine said the film's two male stars are "afflicted with cinematic schizophrenia. One moment they are sinewy, battered remnants of a discarded tradition. The next they are low comedians whose chaffing relationship—and dialogue—could have been lifted from a Batman and Robin episode."[5] Time also claimed that the "score makes the film as absurd and anachronistic as the celebrated Smothers Brothers cowboy who played the kerosene-powered guitar."
Box office
Adjusted for inflation, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ranks among the top 100 grossing movies of all time and the top 10 for its decade, partly due to subsequent re-releases. The film grossed about $102.3 million domestically through 1974 and although no data on its worldwide gross is readily available, it is listed[citation needed] above Goldfinger (1964) – $124.9 million and below Thunderball (1965) – $141.2 million.
Awards and nominations
The film won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical), Best Music, Song (Burt Bacharach and Hal David for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head"), and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced. It was nominated for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Sound
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid also won numerous British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Actor (won by Redford though Newman was also nominated), and Best Actress for Katharine Ross, among others.
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William Goldman won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay.
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In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
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The American Film Institute included the film on several of its AFI 100 Years... series lists:
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies #50
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) #73
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills #54
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains #20 on the heroes list (for Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid)
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs #23 (for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head")
- AFI's 10 Top 10 #7 among Western[6][7]
Legacy
 | Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (November 2009) | . |
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The Sundance Film Festival, begun by Robert Redford, is named for his role in this film, as is his Utah ski resort, Sundance; neither is related to the Wyoming town in whose jail Harry Longabaugh was confined and from which he drew his nickname.
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The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for seriously ill children that the late Paul Newman organized and operated for most of his remaining years drew its name from the gang in this movie.
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There were two made-for-TV sequels that were released in 1974 and 1976, titled Mrs. Sundance starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Wanted: The Sundance Woman starring Katharine Ross as Etta Place working with Pancho Villa.
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A prequel to the film, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, starring Tom Berenger and William Katt as the respective title characters, was released in 1979.[8]
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The film also inspired a television series Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy as two outlaws trying to earn an amnesty.[9] It has also been spoofed in films such as Shanghai Noon[10] and Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, and TV shows such as The Simpsons (in the episode "Duffless"), Futurama, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, The Venture Bros., and Full Metal Panic.[citation needed]
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In Kevin Smith's 1995 film Mallrats, protagonists Jay and Silent Bob are constantly pursued by an aggressive and stoic mall security guard named La Fours, who also wears a signature white Boater hat, as does Lefors in the film.
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The British science fiction show "Blake's 7" based its series finale on the ending to this movie, including the main character Kerr Avon being surrounded by guards, the freeze-frame ending and the sound of shots being fired in several consecutive volleys.
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The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! has an episode titled Butch Mario and the Luigi Kid, an obivious nod to that film's title.
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is directly referenced in episode 8, "Time," of the 2009 series, Stargate Universe, during a sequence in which Dr. Nicholas Rush, before leaping through an unstable Stargate, proclaims, "Hey, for a moment there I thought we were in trouble."
In the anime series Pokemon, the characters Jesse and James, a reference to Jesse James, are rivaled by Butch and Cassidy, a reference to this film's titular character.
Notes
- ^ a b Canby, Vincent (September 25, 1969). "NYT Critics' Pick Review of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173CEE61BC4D51DFBF668382679EDE. Retrieved 2009-02-09.
- ^ a b Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at Allmovie
- ^ "Domestic Grosses Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-09.
- ^ A slice of Lemmon for extra character, Bob Flynn, Panorama, p. 7, Canberra Times, 15 August 1998
- ^ "Double Vision". Time. Friday, Sep. 26, 1969. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,844956,00.html. Retrieved 2009-02-09.
- ^ American Film Institute (2008-06-17). "AFI Crowns Top 10 Films in 10 Classic Genres". ComingSoon.net. http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=46072. Retrieved 2008-06-18.
- ^ "Top Western". American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/10top10/western.html. Retrieved 2008-06-18.
- ^ "IMDB:'Butch and Sundance: The Early Years'". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078919/. Retrieved 2007-11-20.
- ^ "Television Heaven: 'Alias Smith and Jones'". http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/smith.htm. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
- ^ "Shanghai Noon". http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/shanghainoon.htm. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
External links
 | Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid |
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the Internet Movie Database
- Ten Things You Didn't Know About Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid from the American Movie Classics "Future of Classic" blog
| Awards and achievements | ||
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| Preceded by Midnight Cowboy | BAFTA Award for Best Film 1971 | Succeeded by Sunday Bloody Sunday |
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Categories: English-language films | American comedy-drama films | Buddy films | Estudios Churubusco films | Films directed by George Roy Hill | Films shot in Colorado | Films shot in Utah | Films shot in New Mexico | Films shot in Mexico | Films set in Bolivia | Films set in Wyoming | Films set in the 1890s | Films set in the 1900s | BAFTA winners (films) | Best Song Academy Award winners | Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award | Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award | Screenplays by William Goldman | 20th Century Fox films | United States National Film Registry films | 1960s drama films | 1960s Western films | 1969 films
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