The success of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" made Robert Redford a movie star.

But a far less successful movie released just weeks later in 1969, a riveting drama featuring one of best performances in Redford's career, is responsible for turning Redford into the icon to independent film.

That movie, "Downhill Racer," makes its first appearance on DVD today. It's being released by the Criterion Collection, which has a solid reputation for refurbishing classic titles with respectful and scholarly extras.

Redford plays the title role, David Chappellet, a brash young downhill skier who joins the U.S. Ski Team on the European circuit. He's confident, to the point of arrogance, of his ability to get down the mountain faster than anyone else. But he's frustrated by a coach (Gene Hackman) who thinks he's reckless and disrespectful to his teammates.

The story behind the making of "Downhill Racer" has its elements of brashness and frustration, too.

Redford conceived "Downhill Racer" as the first of a trilogy of films, each about winning. (The second film in the trilogy was "The Candidate," about winning in politics. The third movie was never made.)

In Redford's experience, he says in an interview he gives to Criterion for the disc, that the notion that "it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, but how you play the game," was a lie.

"It didn't matter your behavior, your morality. As long as you could win, it was OK," Redford said.

Redford approached Paramount Pictures, for whom he had starred in his first hit, "Barefoot in the Park." Paramount balked at first, urging Redford to instead take the lead role in their big project of 1968, "Rosemary's Baby."

For a time, the idea floated that Roman Polanski, who was a skier, could direct "Downhill Racer" if Redford would star in "Rosemary's Baby" for him. Redford turned down the role, and Paramount pushed Polanski to concentrate solely on "Rosemary's Baby."

As a producer for the first time, Redford pitched "Downhill Racer" to Charles Bluhdorn, the head of Paramount's parent company, by editing a 14-minute reel of ski action -- mostly crashes. Bluhdorn OK'd the film, but only authorized a $2 million budget.

The movie has a bare-bones immediacy, like a documentary. That's deliberate, as Redford and producer Richard Gregson hired people with that sensibility: Screenwriter James Salter had made PBS documentaries; director Michael Ritchie, who had done lots of TV work, including docs; and cinematographer Brian Probyn had made some landmark verite films, including Ken Loach's "Poor Cow."

Personal connections also mattered. Chappellet's love interest was played by Camilla Sparv, ex-wife of Paramount studio boss Robert Evans. Gregson's wife at the time, Natalie Wood, worked as an assistant behind the scenes. (Redford worked with Wood in "This Property Is Condemned" and "Inside Daisy Clover," and were two years apart at the same high school.)

Redford and Ritchie (who also collaborated on "The Candidate") avoided studio interference during filming -- one advantage to shooting in Europe, where all the big ski races were. But Paramount wasn't too interested in the finished product.

"They dumped it," Redford said in the Criterion interview. "I thought if I'm going through this, how many others have had the same experience, been thwarted in the same way? Imagine if they spent two, three, four years getting a picture together, only to have it discarded."

Redford's experience dealing with Paramount then got Redford interested in creating a haven for out-of-the-mainstream filmmaking -- what ultimately became the Sundance Institute.

"Downhill Racer" technically wasn't an independent film, since it was bankrolled by Paramount. But in its on-the-fly visual style, its uncompromising portrait of an unlikeable character, it's the essence of the independent voice Redford has espoused at Sundance.

Sean P. Means writes the Culture Vulture in daily blog form, at blogs.sltrib.com/vulture