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Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

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167 comments in total

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53 out of 82 people found the following comment useful :-
(Top 10 choice) Superb job done by all involved., 22 April 1999

Author: Hermit C-2 from Marietta, GA, USA

Besides being an enormously entertaining movie, "Bonnie and Clyde" was an important 1960's landmark film in a couple of ways. Its violent ending helped to hasten the end of the old Hayes code, which had been a severe restrictor of artistic freedom; and it helped shape the '60's image of the anti-hero. For these things it received a good deal of condemnation as well as commendation.

The picture is a melange of artistic license and historical accuracy. The recreation of the Depression-era look is superb. (It's done in an unostentatious manner, however. One feels it rather than particularly noting it.) While some liberties are taken with the story, a reasonable amount jibes with the facts. But certainly there is some romanticization here. And of course the real Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were not nearly as attractive as Beatty and Dunaway.

The acting by the two principals is top-notch, as well as that of most of the rest of the cast, especially Gene Hackman (the first film I ever saw him in) and Estelle Parsons.It's not generally recognized that actors Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor and Gene Wilder contribute to the movie's success. Technically as well as artistically everyone from director Arthur Penn on down deserves praise for making what I think is one of the finest movies ever made, without qualification. It seems we all reserve the warmest spots in our hearts for favorite films of our youth. This is one of mine.

And you'll love Flatt & Scruggs' "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" too.

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45 out of 70 people found the following comment useful :-
"We Rob Banks.", 10 January 2001
Author: Michael Coy (michael.coy@virgin.net) from London, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Boy meets girl, boy takes girl on robbery spree, cops chase boy and girl. This innovative film transformed Hollywood's approach to the crime genre and ushered the nouvelle vague into America's mainstream.

The real-life Bonnie and Clyde ranged the rural Texas-Oklahoma-Missouri emptiness in the early 1930's, holding up village banks. A product of the Depression, these amateurish outlaws attracted media attention because they brought drama to a bleak, joyless world. They were freewheelers who turned the tables on the banks, notorious but somehow admirable villains. The Robin Hood theme is quietly insisted upon throughout the film. Banks foreclose on poor farmers, or suddenly fail, wiping out ordinary folks' savings. Out of this chaos emerge these youngsters, scourging the rich and living for the moment, riding their luck for as long as it lasts, "uncertain as times are".

Mythology is the stuff that Bonnie and Clyde are made of. The film deals admirably with both reality and myth. A farmer touches Clyde reverently, as he might touch a sacred relic. On the other hand, Old Man Moss is disappointed by the ordinariness of the dynamic duo - "they ain't nothin' but a coupla kids!" We see the clumsy, ragged robberies and the burgeoning fame. Our lovable rogues may be violent thugs, but they favour the little guy. During a robbery in progress, a farmer is permitted to keep his money. The authorities are portrayed as hapless oafs, as is customary in 'Robin Hood' movies, but here it bears an underlying significance - America's institutions have failed the citizens. People can't repose trust in the police. (The film was made at the depths of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights disturbances.)

One of the striking features of the film, and one which attracted criticism on its release, is the linking of violence with comedy. This was a period when violence was being portrayed graphically onscreen, and what is new in this film is that the firing of the gun and the bullet hitting the victim are both contained in the same camera shot, as opposed to the traditional euphemism of the cut away from the gun. We never forget that, for all their hedonistic levity, our two leads are "staring square into the face of death". The final shoot-up is a shocking and fascinating danse macabre. "There's nothing quite like the kinetics of violence," says director Arthur Penn. He uses crazily juxtaposed running-speeds to compound the horror of the madly-flailing corpses, an effect which he calls "both spastic and balletic".

And then, of course, there is sex. The real Clyde Barrow maintained a homosexual liaison with C.W. Moss, and originally the writers Benton and Newman had wanted the menage-a-trois with Bonnie to be a part of the film. Warren Beatty objected to playing a bisexual, and on reflection the Beatty-Penn-Benton-Newman production team dispensed with the sexual sophistication, reasoning that it would complicate the story unnecessarily and alienate cinema audiences. The only remaining vestiges are Clyde's difficulty making love to Bonnie, and some laddish cuddles during the card game in the hideout. The meeting of Bonnie and Clyde at the start is filled with playful sexual imagery. A bored, trapped Bonnie pummels the slats of her bedframe, pouting with sexual frustration. Clyde bursts into this 'prison' and seduces her with his aura of danger and excitement. Check out the phallic symbols - toothpick, gun and coke bottle.

The music is wonderful in itself, and wonderfully appropriate. Flatt and Scruggs' "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" evokes place and time perfectly, and provides a rousing accompaniment to the car chases. Director Penn has the boldness to dispense with incidental music and, where dramatic effect requires it, to rely on ambient sound such as eerily-rustling grass.

At the writing stage, Benton and Newman were in love with the French New Wave and wanted this project to enshrine the nouvelle vague principles. Strenuous but abortive attempts were made to recruit first Truffaut and then Godard, but Beatty finally convinced the writers that outer trappings such as European directors were unnecessary, because the script held all the New Wave ingredients. Truffaut's benign influence pervades the final version, especially the section where Bonnie reads her ballad aloud. We move visually through three scenes as Bonnie's voice proclaims the couple's testament, a cinematic gem suggested by Truffaut. Throughout the action, the jump-cut style of editing captures perfectly the spareness which is the essence of New Wave. Two sheets of newspaper are scattered on the swirling wind, an image which underscores the feckless, empty existence of the protagonists. Benton may not have got his francophone director, but in this fresh treatment of classic American subject matter he succeeded in making his "specifically European film".

"We couldn't have made it on the back lot," says Beatty, and he is right. The rural Texas locations are terrific, their open spaces hinting at both freedom and emptiness. Bonnie and Clyde are at their best when on the move, and they grow fractious whenever cooped up. The countryside is almost a participant in the story, as when the distraught Bonnie, filled with thoughts of death and separation, absconds through the field of withered corn, or the Eugene-Thelma episode closes with a dustcloud 'wiping' the action. The night-to-day sequence around the two cars after Buck's misfortune is beautifully done.

Beatty produced the film as well as starring in it. He held daily pre-shoot discussion sessions for the cast, an admirable attempt to enrich the creative process. By the evidence of this fresh, entertaining and superbly-constructed film, his inclusive instincts triumphantly augmented a winning formula.

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54 out of 88 people found the following comment useful :-
Quite Possibly the Most Important Film of the 1960s, 10 October 2000
Author: tfrizzell from United States

"Bonnie and Clyde" is a real innovative film in the fact that it does contain some extremely violent content. 1967 was a different time in the cinema. This film was one of the first, if not the first, that really showed violence the way it would be in real life. People bleed when they get shot and they die in gruesome fashions. The film itself is the somewhat true story of the infamous bank robbers who terrorized parts of Texas and Oklahoma in the early-1930s before they were finally terminated by the authorities. Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, and Michael J. Pollard all received Oscar nominations. Estelle Parsons won one in the Supporting Actress category. Dunaway and Hackman proved to be the finds of the decade and Beatty became the first real star to be an instrumental part in the actual production of the film. Watch for Gene Wilder in a somewhat funny sequence during the course of the action. Unrelenting and overall exceptional, "Bonnie and Clyde" is easily one of the top 10 films of the 1960s and one of the greatest films of all time. 5 stars out of 5.

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43 out of 71 people found the following comment useful :-
The movie that made it okay to sympathize with murderers..., 30 October 2001

Author: filmbuff-36 from Houston, TX

First of all, let me say that I'm appalled by the real life Bonnie and Clyde. They were two psychopathic thrill killers from Dallas who had a special hatred for law enforcement officers. I must admit that I do feel sorry for the way they were killed, but like the old axiom goes, "If you live by the sword, you die by the sword."

That said, the movie "Bonnie and Clyde" was a groundbreaking film. It was the first time that we the audience were allowed inside the killers minds, and could see what made them tick. This is perhaps the first film that takes a somewhat objective look at crime; we the audience don't have "FBI Seal of Approval" morality shoved down our throats, but we still can tell by the actions of the characters that they are evil, whether they know it or not.

The story is of two Texas young adults who, bored with their lives and the prospects of going nowhere in the world, decide to live out their dreams of stardom by going on a crime spree. They fancy themselves a sort of "Romeo and Juliet" couple, and think of their robberies as harmless fun. They start out small by knocking over grocery stores and gas stations, but soon graduate to banks when they need more money to accommodate their lifestyle. Soon they have a simple minded gas clerk named C.W. and Clyde's brother and wife in the gang, and the duo goes down into history.

Then the fun and games are over. With law enforcement officials now looking for Bonnie and Clyde, they become targets of bounty hunters, unethical cops and other greedy persons who wish to make a name for themselves, and they lose a part of their childish innocence as the escalation of their crimes makes them become more and more violent. When death finally comes for Bonnie and Clyde, it comes with a vengeance.

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway have never been better. Beatty, who plays Clyde Barrow as an impotent, ne'er do well country boy who seems to be sowing his wild oats, is in top form. He makes Clyde likable, with a goofy smile perpetually pasted on his face, even when sticking up a bank with two guns in his hands. Dunaway is the ultimate femme fatale as Bonnie Parker, a sweet natured Southern belle who likes the feel of a .38 in her hands as she politely asks for all the money. It's absurd, it's unrealistic, but hey, it's Hollywood. And the film works.

But most importantly, Bonnie and Clyde are in love. It's a kind of love that only few films afterward have been able to equal. There is a genuine feeling of giddy romance between the two no matter what the scene, be it a bank robbery or family get-together away from the reaches of society.

Arthur Penn was obviously a man on a mission when he directed this film. You could sense with every frame that he knew of the importance of this movie; a cinematic masterpiece that dares to make its audience evoke pathos for what would have been banned just a few years earlier.

The finale is still to this day a triumph of audience manipulation. The two bandits, finally captured and unable to escape, are dealt with in a fashion that will haunt you days after viewing. It's sad, it's disgusting, but it brings closure to the lives of two individuals whose works and existence could not be tolerated by the powers that be.

The movie "Bonnie and Clyde" inspired a generation of film makers to look at cinema in a different light. Actions movies were allowed to be funny from this point; funny movies could get away with violence. On the negative side, however, the film changed the morals of Hollywood by allowing murder to be dealt with in such a nonchalant fashion.

Sure, Claude is obviously shaken up after his first kill, as are Bonnie and C.W., but from that point on violence against law officials is no longer a problem. The police in this film are rather like the way gangsters used to be portrayed; a collection of stupid, soulless individuals who only want to ruin Bonnie and Clyde's fun.

In the end, this in an excellent film about Depression era gangsters. Most ironically, however, is that it seems dedicated to the two real life robbers who don't deserve such an honor of having a film legacy created in their names.

10 stars. Innovative, fresh, and hey, it helped pave the way for "Dillinger", my favorite movie in the robber-gangster genre.

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16 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the First, and Still Best, Movies About America's Obsession with Violence, 3 July 2006

Author: brocksilvey from United States

Every time I watch "Bonnie and Clyde" I'm convinced that this time it won't shock me. And every time I'm proved wrong.

"Bonnie and Clyde" was one of the first American movies to acknowledge that Americans are turned on by violence. People blame this movie for ushering in the increasingly graphic content of movies that in the present day makes it seem as if nothing is off limits. But this is wishful thinking on the part of people who don't want to admit that America has been a violent culture from day one. "Bonnie and Clyde" was a huge hit, but it's because it gave people what they wanted, not because it introduced them to something they'd never thought of before. At least in this film, you see what happens when a bullet tears through human flesh -- I can't say the same for the countless morale-boosting WWII films from the 1940s or the John Wayne westerns that are so beloved by conservative America.

In the world of "Bonnie and Clyde," sex and violence are extensions of the same impulse. Clyde can't get one "gun" to work, so he uses another. Bonnie is as restless as a cat in heat -- but Clyde won't scratch her itch, so she finds other ways of releasing tension. It's a movie that makes us identify with the killers. They're gorgeous and glamorous, but they're also vulnerable. They're Robin Hoods, justifying their crime by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor; but they're also naive in thinking that when they steal money from banks they're not also stealing from the poor rural people who use those banks. Authority figures aren't seen much in the film, but when they are, they're sadistic. Sheriff Hamer is a stony, craggy mass in comparison to the movie-star killers, and C.W. Moss's dad, who's finally the one to turn Bonnie and Clyde in, does what is right morally, but that's overshadowed by the fact that all we see him do is beat C.W. and call him white trash. It's no wonder this half-wit kid ran away with the Barrow gang in the first place. We know there's only one possible ending to the movie, yet by the time it comes, we find ourselves half hoping that Bonnie and Clyde can start over and make the American dream a reality. We've forgotten that they've killed, many times, in cold blood.

The most haunting scene in the film is the one in which Bonnie visits her mother for one last time, and her mom tells her what the audience has known all along but hasn't consciously acknowledged until that point: "You try to live within three miles of me, and you won't live long honey. You best keep runnin'." It's one of the most chilling and effective moments I've ever seen in a movie.

Grade: A+

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10 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Classic., 16 March 2004
Author: Adam Morrison (kilgore16@hotmail.com) from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada

"Bonnie & Clyde" is one of those classic movies that became a landmark in cinema. It was one of the first movies to depict graphic violence, and led to movies like "The Wild Bunch" (another masterwork). Although no where near horrific like modern movies, violence in movies had to start somewhere. Taking the story of Clyde Barrow & Bonnie Parker, director Arthur Penn & screenwriters Robert Benton & David Newman give us criminals that the audiences would rather cheer for than the police.It's been said many times before, but Beatty & Dunaway are wonderful as the title roles, and Michael J. Pollard is also very excellent. Has one of the best opening credits sequences ever.

Rating:***** (out of *****)

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13 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
The kickoff in the debate about cinematic violence, 17 July 2001

Author: virek213 from San Gabriel, Ca., USA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

There is very little doubt that Arthur Penn's 1967 film BONNIE AND CLYDE is a masterpiece of its era. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty portray the two notorious Depression-era bank robbers of the Midwest with great zeal; and even though the REAL story is over-romanticized by screenwriters David Newman and Robert Benton, it still crackles with excitement. Estelle Parsons won a Best Supporting Actress role as Blanche Barrow, and Burnet Guffey won a statuette for Cinematography. The film also introduced us to Gene Wilder and Michael J. Pollard, as well as made a certified star out of Gene Hackman. Dub Taylor also appears as Pollard's strict father.

All of these elements are what make BONNIE AND CLYDE a great movie. But what gives this film historical importance is that it kicked off the debate about graphic violence in the movies that continues to this day. The minute Beatty is forced to put a bullet through a shopkeeper's eye during a fumbled grocery store hold-up marked the end of clean violence. The film escalates to Hackman's getting his head blown off, Beatty being blasted in the shoulder, and finally the thirty-second sequence at the end of Beatty and Dunaway taking hundreds of bullets. The impact of such scenes still remains, even though the epic carnage of THE WILD BUNCH was only two years away.

Such controversial elements aside, BONNIE AND CLYDE accurately captures the feel of Depression-era America and gives it a parallel to the rebellion taking place in the America of 1967. It is also boosted by a twangy folk-music score, including Flatt and Scruggs' hard-driving "Foggy Mountain Breakdown." Not to be missed!

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18 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
Faded Genius, 7 June 2001
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Spoilers herein.

Warren Beatty was a budding genius when this was made -- sort of an Orson Welles. Determined to bring then novel French sensibilites to Hollywood, he created a specific vision. Most films are about other films, and all the references here are French.

This film transformed Hollywood, and launched a dozen or so major careers. It is a milestone and should be seen on that basis alone. But its value in its time was that it was so different. I remember seeing it when it was new, in the brief period before it was withdrawn in failure. (It later came back.) That first screening was a shock: the shot in the face at the bank, the two shots in the face of the brother and wife, the dancing bodies at the end were different, but the real shock was the expanding of our collective eye. You had to be there -- its not the same now.

The reason it doesn't have that same effect today is because it was so successful in setting a new tone. But two scenes still have power: the first scene with a nearly nude desperate Faye whose eye just happens on enough to make a situation out of. This has an idealist film concept behind it, a presentation that is still modern and abstract.

The second scene is the meeting of Bonnie's family at a picnic with CW standing guard. The film is washed yellow and overexposed. The action is close to what an amateur might film at a real picnic. But its realness makes it stand out at the most artificial scene in the film, the center that in other films would be set by a narrator or chorus.

Beatty would go on to make two other groundbreaking film, `Reds,' and `Shampoo,' and then he lost his vision. Dick Tracy was ambitious and beyond his means, and we lost a great talent. What we have now is `Bulworth,' how sad.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Ripe for Reassessment, 6 September 2006

Author: Martin Bradley (MOscarbradley@aol.com) from Derry, Ireland

When Arthur Penn's Thirties-set gangster movie first appeared in 1967 it was like a breath of fresh air in the American cinema, (though to be fair, on hindsight, the American cinema in the previous few years, particularly in the Independent sector, wasn't doing too badly). Still, Penn's movie seemed to break new ground and not just in it's depiction of violence. It had a lyrical intensity that belonged more to the French New Wave, (and at one time Truffaut's name was associated with the project), and, in that it took back to the American cinema the trappings that the French had originally borrowed in films like "A Bout De Soufflé" and "Shoot the Pianist", seemed to square the circle.

In the intervening years it has fallen somewhat out of fashion. It now almost seems quaintly old-fashioned, it's form more classically structured and narratively driven than might first appeared. But there are virtues that have largely been overlooked. Like "The Graduate" which came out in the same year, it is a young person's film yet it burns with a fierce intelligence that is conspicuously absent from similar films today. I suppose you could say the film has a pop-art sensibility, (a close-up of Faye Dunaway's face, lips burning bright red, could come from a Lichtenstein poster), and its cast seem unnaturally young, (only Beatty had established a persona for himself at the time; the others had yet to establish a reputation), but they became stars because of it. (Gang members Parsons and Pollard didn't make the leap; they were character actors from the start). Arguably you could say Beatty, Dunaway, Hackman, Parsons and Pollard were never to better their work here. They may have equalled it but their performances were definitive.

Arthur Penn, too, was never to make another movie as good. The film's extraordinary critical and popular success gave Penn the freedom to tackle 'weightier' material, but "Little Big Man" and "Georgia's Friends" now seem misguided attempts at solemnity, while even his brilliant western "The Missouri Breaks" seems to succeed more for it's oddness rather than it's originality. Perhaps "Bonnie and Clyde" was a one-off though it did spawn an awful lot of break-neck thrillers and up-dated film-noirs, and was more responsible for the baby-boom in movies in the seventies than "Easy Rider" which followed it two years later. It remains a film ripe for reassessment.

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19 out of 34 people found the following comment useful :-
Great For Its Day, 25 April 2006

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

For a long, long time this was a memorable film and one of my favorites. It was one of the first VHS tapes I bought. After a long hiatus, I bought the DVD, watched it again and - wow, it wasn't so hot anymore.

Oh, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Michael J. Pollard are still very good in their respective roles as Clyde, Bonnie and C.J. What annoyed me were the characters played by Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons. Hackman has gone on to have a very distinguished career but he is just a stupid moron in here he's no fun to watch. However, it's a picnic watching him compared to listening to Parsons shrieking and screaming through her abrasive role. Those two ruin the film for me now.

I'll still have fond memories and I'll always remember the time I first saw this in the theaters when it came out. The violent ending caused quite a stir at that time. Nobody had seen blood and bullets on screen like that before. Now, it's commonplace....even tame compared to many of today's scenes!

This was another of those films that began in the '60s in which the bad guys were portrayed as the good guys and vice-versa. It's still highly-recommended for those who have never viewed it.

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