Most Rewatchable Scene
The waterfall jump
In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:44:06Read transcript
- The category is set up as the scene you stay for when you catch the movie while flipping channels; one host has five and invites additions, and one participant asks to guess them first.
- The guesses: the first-act fight with the huge guy in the gang that ends with one kick, which is on the list, and the third-act attempt to rob the Bolivian bank while getting the Spanish right, which was not on the list but gets added.
- The first Redford scene: with no history with the actor, the close-ups and the different 1870s-style color make you wonder what is going on, the film carefully establishes in two minutes that nobody should mess with him though he is not physically huge, and it ends with him firing six bullets around the man without killing him, instant mythology, while Newman knows what is coming and is already flying out of the way.
- Butch kicking the giant leader in the balls is on the list; Goldman wrote that people objected because a John Wayne hero would not do that, and studio people asked why Sundance was not helping, joking dryly about bets instead; the answer is that Sundance knows exactly what is going to happen and is not worried about Butch at all.
- The train robbery that introduces the super posse is on the list, though the first train robbery where they blow the car up could be argued; the Woodcock clip is played, the poor man nearly murdered out of loyalty to E.H. Harriman, and the actor is identified as George Firth (as transcribed); the second robbery with the horse posse is called a great seven minutes, with Goldman's book explaining how it was shot.
- Further nominees: the Bolivian bank scene, the ending, the payroll-up-the-hill scene in Bolivia with the colorful character actor right before he is shot, its sister scene where it comes out that Butch has never shot anyone, the waterfall, and the meeting with Bledsoe where they try to enlist, which one host holds back for another category.
- It comes down to the train robbery and super posse scene versus the waterfall; the waterfall is called one of the most rewatchable scenes of all time and the clip is played, with the angry, embarrassed 'I can't swim' named a favorite line reading, Newman's reaction praised, and the jump and the men coming in called everything you want from an action scene.
- Earlier, Goldman is described as holding on to the secret that Sundance could not swim for as long as he could, unable to wait to write the cliff scene; the run to the edge and what they shout as they jump have been ripped off in fifty other movies, Lethal Weapon included.