1960s gave way to the cynical 1970s, US cinema began serving up increasingly nihilistic and psychologically complex stories, all with sour endings to match. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969) foretold the death of the hippie dream. But the western had it in its sights too. Released in 1969, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Desperados, and The Wild Bunch all ended in calamity and bloodshed, all their key players slain. Many more westerns of the era had similarly shocking, symbolic conclusions. Though ostensibly designed to convey the death of the Old West, these end-of-the-line westerns also echoed the way the flower-power fantasy wilted in the wake of the Tate-LaBianca murders, the violence at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, and the escalating tensions of the Vietnam War.
