In the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the charmingly larcenous Paul Newman wonders aloud on several occasions about the Union Pacific Railroad’s expert posse whose relentless pursuit of the bandit-heroes eventually persuades them to try to “go straight.”
(And that leads to another classic line, “If he'd just pay me what he's spending to make me stop robbing him, I'd stop robbing him”—but now I'm sidetracking this chat by hinting at a connection between the movie’s depiction of modernity’s rapid encroachment on the romantic notion of the Old West and the demise of the charmingly free and fun-loving trucker following the Motor Carrier Act in 1980. RIP, Jimmy Carter, the Great Deregulator. For reference, see: lots of anti-establishment movies from the 1970s.)
