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Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
“Bonnie
and Clyde” is a classic. I can’t see an argument sparking between
anyone. Sure history buffs can pick this film apart but I look at it
as an enjoyable slice of Americana. The film speeds through the factual
aspects of Bonnie and Clyde’s first encounter while stretching the
truth. They meet, tell each other all about one another and go on a
robbery date in their first 15 minutes of meeting each other. The film
began with Bonnie pacing around her room back and forth, looking bored
as all hell in her mother’s home. Soon she makes her way towards the
window and notices a crook peeking around her mother’s car. As soon
as they meet each others eye they fall in love.
Arthur
Penn and Producer/Actor Warren Beatty went all out with this film and
broke a lot of new ground while being smart enough not to take the wrong
risk. After watching some of the wonderful special features I learned
that Clyde’s character was supposed to be a bisexual. The film wouldn’t
have had the same appeal and the audience wouldn’t have connected
as well with the on screen characters. Instead Clyde’s character was
made to be a little insecure in the sack. Any time he turns Bonnie on
he pulls her off of him either because he is shy or because he can’t
get it up. I can’t tell as the camera never focused on Warren Beatty’s
pecker!
Warren
Beatty as Clyde was wonderful in an early scene with the equally impressive
Faye Dunaway as Bonnie during an diner date. He tells her the fix her
hair simply because he doesn’t like it and she gives in to his demand.
I swear to god in 1967 Faye Dunaway had to be the sexiest girl on the
planet because she looked gorgeous while nervously munching on a sandwich.
Clyde must have agreed as he said “You’re a knock out”. Playful
but smooth moments like these keep a horror fan interested as it felt
real. Maybe I just liked an outcast like Clyde as a sincere heartthrob
with a delivery that doesn’t match his sexual service.
Bonnie
and Clyde just simply fall in love and then pick up a gas station clerk
named C.W Moss as they felt it would be smart to have a car expert with
them. They do go from one car to another car from one robbery to the
next. Then after the trio bounce from a nearly botched robbery they
know their in for a world of trouble. When making their getaway Clyde
blasted a bank teller point blank in the face and as he sees it , he
committed his first murder so there is not turning back. Clyde has been
to prison and has no plans on going back. Soon he hooks up with his
ex-convict brother Buck Barrow (Gene Hackman) and fiancée Blanche.
Instantly they get mixed up with Bonnie and Clyde’s life of crime
and there is not turning back.
I
haven’t seen this film and years and while watching this film I sure
thought Estelle Parsons was annoying as Blanche. While watching the
special features I believe Arthur Penn or one of the producers mentioned
that her constant whining made Bonnie appear to be much more cool. They
were damn right. The amount of tension with the group was dynamite.
C.W Moss really just seemed like the young guy that was trying to fit
in and his character was basically inspired by three guys Bonnie and
Clyde picked up on the way to committing their next crime. I loved Gene
Hackman as Clyde’s supportive brother that was equally supportive
to his nagging wife. He gave the film an extra boost to its already
contagious upbeat mood. There is one scene where Gene Wilder appears
along side the ensemble after he is kidnapped for a joyride by the Barrow
Gang. He and the actress alongside him, Evans Evans deliver charming
performances as a couple that eventually admire their captures. There
ride is cut short when Wilder’s character Eugene Grizzard mentions
that he is an Undertaker. Instantly Bonnie asks Clyde to let them go
as she feels she is facing her immortality.
The
characters in this film are wonderful. Besides the misfits you’ll
get a vengeful Texas Ranger named Frank Hamer that the group cuffed,
photographed and tossed in a boat only to drift down a lake. Clyde just
about went nuts on him after he spit right in Bonnie’s face after
she forcefully but a sloppy smack right on his whiskery mouth.
He definitely had a score to settle with the group, and while not all
based on the real Frank Hamer he was an interesting character. Then
there’s C.W Moss’s untrustworthy father Ivan who lets Bonnie and
Clyde stay with him only to turn his back on them to give his knucklehead
son a lighter sentence. Michael Pollard really turns it on as C.W Moss
when telling his father that the law is no match for Clyde Barrow after
being slapped. Guys like him are what started the “Stop Snitching”
campaign. Another scene stealer was the subtle but frank performance
by the uncredited Mabel Cavitt in her only performance ever as Bonnie’s
mother. Her exchange with Clyde over moving nearby to her home was to
the point and heartbreaking.
Bonnie
and Clyde lived in the depression times where a lot of folks that turned
to a life of crime were glamorized in the papers and public enemy number
one. This film came out around the time of Vietnam so the mixture
of love and violence probably resonated with a lot of flower childs
and those that experienced the war. The final scene involves and ambush
that doesn’t hide the violence. It didn’t matter that David Newman
and Robert Benton turned the Bonnie and Clyde characters into on screen
heroes, there had to be an honesty with the ending. It seems like hundreds
of squibs went off in the masterfully edited and wonderfully choreographed
ambush scene. This scene has been ripped off a number of times and it
deserves to be homage to at least once every decade.
You
will see characters get fed up with one another and then have eachothers
back and then beat the coppers. They risk their lives only to go on
the road with a few dollars until their next inevitable score. Times
were hard, Clyde didn’t want to go back to prison and Bonnie supported
her man in this pitch perfect love story. “Bonnie and Clyde” had
a great hillbilly soundtrack during the chase scenes that added to the
humor of this film. You will crack up listening to Clyde complain about
the man that attacked him with a meat cleaver during an attempted robbery.
It had ashocking ending for its time, wonderful scenery, great chemistry
between the actors and much more in this stretched truth fairy tale
of crime. I love this movie.
****
-Russ Rutter
-One of my favorite moments
in this film is when Faye Dunaway delivers the famous poem by Bonnie
Parker. Here is the poem in it’s entirety for you’re reading pleasure!
You've read the story of Jesse
James--
Of how he lived and died;
If you're still in need
Of something to read
Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.
Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow
gang.
I'm sure you all have read
How they rob and steal
And those who squeal
Are usually found dying or dead.
There's lots of untruths to these
write-ups;
They're not so ruthless as that;
Their nature is raw;
They hate the law--
The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.
They call them cold-blooded killers;
They say they are heartless and mean;
But I say this with pride,
That I once knew Clyde
When he was honest and upright and clean.
But the laws fooled around,
Kept taking him down
And locking him up in a cell,
Till he said to me,
"I'll never be free,
So I'll meet a few of them in hell."
The road was so dimly lighted;
There were no highway signs to guide;
But they made up their minds
If all roads were blind,
They wouldn't give up till they died.
The road gets dimmer and dimmer;
Sometimes you can hardly see;
But it's fight, man to man,
And do all you can,
For they know they can never be free.
From heart-break some people have
suffered;
From weariness some people have died;
But take it all in all,
Our troubles are small
Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.
If a policeman is killed in Dallas,
And they have no clue or guide;
If they can't find a fiend,
They just wipe their slate clean
And hang it on Bonnie and Clyde.
There's two crimes committed in
America
Not accredited to the Barrow mob;
They had no hand
In the kidnap demand,
Nor the Kansas City Depot job.
A newsboy once said to his buddy:
"I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
In these awful hard times
We'd make a few dimes
If five or six cops would get bumped."
The police haven't got the report
yet,
But Clyde called me up today;
He said, "Don't start any fights--
We aren't working nights--
We're joining the NRA."
From Irving to West Dallas viaduct
Is known as the Great Divide,
Where the women are kin,
And the men are men,
And they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.
If they try to act like citizens
And rent them a nice little flat,
About the third night
They're invited to fight
By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.
They don't think they're too smart
or desperate,
They know that the law always wins;
They've been shot at before,
But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.
Some day they'll go down together;
They'll bury them side by side;
To few it'll be grief--
To the law a relief--
But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.
