Near the midpoint of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” director George Roy Hill’s 1969 buddy movie starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, the outlaws barge into the office of a Wyoming sheriff. Anxious to evade the hard-charging posse tracking them after a pair of train robberies, the duo beseeches the lawman—who has a soft spot for the rogues—to intercede on their behalf with the federal government. Butch explains that they would happily serve in the Spanish-American War, adding gamely: “They don’t even have to make us officers.” But the sheriff demurs, insisting, in one of the film’s most quoted passages: “Now...

Source: Wall Street Journal July 13, 2020 22:41 UTC