Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

A landmark gangster film that made a huge commercial and cultural splash. The seminal script by David Newman and Robert Benton struck a nerve with the 1967 youth culture as it reimagined the two rural Depression-era outlaws as largely sympathetic nonconformists. The film set new standards for screen violence, but it alternated its scenes of mayhem with lyrical interludes and jaunty slapstick sequences accompanied by spirited banjo music. While unusual for a Hollywood feature, such jarring shifts in tone were typical of the genre-bending works of French New Wave directors François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, both of whom were slated to direct the feature at various points in its genesis.

Synopsis: The pair meet in a small, 1930s town when Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) tries to steal a car belonging to Bonnie Parker's (Faye Dunaway) mother. (Bonnie and Clyde actually met in a restaurant where Bonnie was slinging hash and turning tricks on the side.) The two walk along the streets talking like sophomoric kids, Clyde bragging that he once hacked off two toes to get off work detail in state prison. He shows her a large handgun like some kid with a grownup toy, and then robs a store to impress her. As he runs wildly to a car and hot-wires it, Bonnie jumps in, and they race off, laughing hysterically. She is all over him, ecstatic with excitement, smothering him with kisses, but he pulls away from her, telling her that he is not "one of them glamour boys." She lashes back, saying he is not what he appears to be, that he has nothing to offer her sexually. (This, in fact, was not exactly true; Barrow was an active heterosexual, though with homosexual tendencies, which sometimes became pronounced around younger male members of the gang.)

Nevertheless, she goes off with Clyde, hiding in farmhouses, pulling a small-time job here and there. After the pair have enjoyed some minor success, they are joined by a naive gas station attendant C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard) and later by Buck Barrow (Gene Hackman) and his wife, Blanche (Estelle Parsons). The gang robs a small-town bank and Clyde is shown to be a chivalrous populist of a sort, allowing a farmer who has just made a withdrawal to keep his cash. (This was actually the act of John Dillinger at a Greencastle, Indiana, bank he robbed in 1933.) The gang settles into a cheap little apartment over a garage in Joplin, Missouri, but police discover their hideout and close in. The gang escapes in a wild shoot-out in which several cops are killed. At one point in the sequence, Blanche is scooped into the gang's moving car by Buck in much the same way western outlaws are shown lifting fallen comrades into their saddles as they escape the local sheriff. (This is perhaps the most accurate in the film, based on the actual facts of the Joplin shoot-out.) Blanche, a whining shrew with delusions of moral superiority, demands a share of the loot after a robbery she has done nothing to further, and Bonnie is outraged.

Clyde cites Blanche's kinship as the basis of his acquiescence. This, coupled with Clyde's sexual inadequacy, causes her to run away, but he quickly catches up with her, and they make love in an open field. Later, in a moment of caprice, the gang captures a Texas Ranger, Frank Hamer (Denver Pyle), forcing him to pose for photographs with them. (The gang members were indeed obsessed with taking each other's picture; the most famous of these features Bonnie with pistol in hand and a cigar in her mouth.) Bonnie kisses Hamer, and he spits in her face, which causes Clyde to almost drown him in a nearby lake, but he is stopped by Buck. Finally, the ranger is bound in his own handcuffs and set adrift in a boat.

The gang steals a car which belongs to Eugene Grizzard (Gene Wilder, marvelous in a small role); Eguene and his fiancee chase after them in another auto. The pursuers quickly become the pursued and are captured and taken on a joyride. They swap jokes and eat hamburgers with the outlaws until Bonnie learns that Eugene is a mortician, whereupon she abruptly orders them from the car. This foreshadowing is later emphasized at the end of a Parker family reunion sequence when Bonnie fancifully babbles that Clyde will settle down and they'll live next door. "You'll live within a mile of me, honey, and you'll be dead," her ancient mother drones.

The gang is cornered at a cheap motor court where police open fire. The outlaws fight their way free, but their downfall has begun. Buck is mortally wounded, and Blanche is blinded in one eye. They stop in an open field, only to be attacked the next morning by an army of lawmen led by Frank Hamer. Fleeing from the onslaught, both Bonnie and Clyde are wounded, and are dragged to a stolen car by the ever-faithful C.W. Moss. Blanche is captured and inadvertently reveals Moss's name, allowing Hamer to locate the boy's father. Meanwhile, the gang heads for Moss's home town, stopping at "Okie" camps where they are given food and water, many of the displaced farmers gaping at the wounded outlaws in the back seat in awe and respect. (The writers were no doubt drawing upon the populism of "Pretty Boy" Floyd, who was a sort of Robin Hood to his Oklahoma neighbors. When robbing a bank, Floyd made a practice of burning all unrecorded mortgages—a farm boy striking back against a system that was driving his people from their land.)

When they reach Moss's home, his father, Ivan (Dub Taylor) takes care of the wounded outlaws, but he later meets with Hamer and helps to set up the pair. Ivan fakes a flat tire, knowing that the pair will soon drive by. Clyde stops his car, gets out, and offers to help. A phalanx of police wait behind thick shrubbery across the road. When Ivan dives beneath the truck, a flock of birds suddenly erupts skyward from the bushes. Penn zooms his camera in on the faces of Bonnie and Clyde, who look lovingly at each other for the last time, their bloody death throes then recorded down to the last twitch. (Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed just outside Gibland, Louisiana, on May 23, 1934. They did not get out of their car, which was raked by 187 shells. Clyde had been driving in his socks, and Bonnie had a sandwich in her mouth. They had been set up by a one-time confederate, Henry Methvin.)

Critique: The film, which captures the era wonderfully with splendid photography, is largely a work of fiction. The approach was simple: show the story everyone wants to see, forget the facts, and immerse the fiction in a heavy, colorful documentary atmosphere to make it appear factual, real, and, most important, significant. Thematically, it deals with such various subjects as displaced sexuality, kinship, alienation, and dehumanization. Bonnie and Clyde grossed $23 million and became Warner's second best box-office attraction up to that time (after MY FAIR LADY, 1964). Its director is still best known for this single cinematic achievement.

Nominated for ten Oscars, the film won only two: for Best Supporting Actress Parsons and cinematographer Burnett Guffey. Other nominations included Best Picture , Best Actor (Beatty lost to Rod Steiger), Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor (both Pollard and Hackman were nominated), Best Direction, Best Screenplay, and Best Costume Design.

Cast:

Performer, Character

Warren Beatty, Clyde Barrow

Faye Dunaway, Bonnie Parker

Michael J. Pollard, C.W. Moss

Gene Hackman, Buck Barrow

Estelle Parsons, Blanche

Denver Pyle, Frank Hamer

Dub Taylo,r Ivan Moss

Evans Evans, Velma Davis

Gene Wilder, Eugene Grizzard

Production Credits:

Producer, Warren Beatty

Directo,r Arthur Penn

Screenwriters, David Newman and Robert Benton

Editor, Dede Allen

Cinematographer, Burnett Guffey

Composer, Charles Strouse

Special Effects, Danny Lee