Paul Newman and Butch Cassidy

I'm sorry that Paul Newman has died. He starred in two of my favourite films that touch on the crime genre in different ways. The Verdict was a good legal thriller and The Sting even more enjoyable, with a clever crime caper strengthened by a nice score of Scott Joplin rags.

My number one Newman movie, though, is that all-time classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It's a film that benefits from a terrific script by William Goldman (who ventured into thriller territory in other movies), first-rate acting and a brilliant soundtrack, which earned two Oscars, one for the score itself and another for 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head', which featured in the legendary bicycle sequence.

'Raindrops' was the second single I ever bought, and I still think that its composition for this movie was brilliantly counter-intuitive. If you don't know the soundtrack, do check it out. 'South American Getaway' is a superb example of how to use voices as insturments, while 'The Sundance Kid' is wonderful - even though it was ultimately cut out of the version of the movie that finally reached the audiences...