“... That's what sustained me in my time of trouble.”

This isn't one of my most-quoted movie lines but I feel like it should be. It's from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” so it tends to get lost amid the many, many great lines there. The other night, I watched the movie for the first time in decades, and for some reason this line stood out.

It's early in the movie, Butch and Sundance are returning to their hideout at Hole-in-the-Wall pass, only to find that a member of the gang, Harvey (Ted Cassidy, 6'9“, who played Lurch on ”The Addams Family), has usurped Butch's authority. So there's a knifefight. That's one of the famous lines. “Rules? In a knife fight?”

After Butch wins a fight no one thought he could win, one of the gang members, Flat Nose (future “Police Woman” regular Charles Dierkop), goes up to him and says, almost childlike, “I was rooting for ya, Butch.” Which is when Newman says the line.

I suppose you could say it when someone professes support after the battle is over. Which ... yeah, I guess that's why we don't use it. The circumstances are too rare, and most friends aren't so two-faced. But politicians? Taking credit for, say, the results of a law that benefits their constitutents but which they fought and didn't vote for? “Well, thank you, Flat Nose. That's what sustained us in our time of trouble.”

There's something there anyway.