Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

7/10

Starring

Warren Beatty

Faye Dunaway

Directed by Arthur Penn

Bonnie and Clyde is a wonderful adaptation of the two armed robbers who terrorized America in the early 30s. This movie starts with a wonderful acting pair in Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, their acting alone did it for me, but another memorable person in the movie is Buck’s wife Blanche played by Estelle Parsons.

Her portrayal was awesome, to be honest her acting trumps the rest. She was the person in the movie you want to hate for just being there, and she did that part too well and won an Academy Award for all her troubles, and it was worth it.

The movie was a landmark in its time of release, due to the sexual content and the huge graphic violence. If you compare the contents to what we see today, what happened in the film will fall under none existence. But in 1967 the implied sexual act of Bonnie on Clyde was frown upon. Another thing that was not well received was the glorification of the characters as somewhat anti-heroes, when in reality they were criminals.

 

The movie tells the tale of Bonnie and Clyde two strangers who met and began a life of crime after their first heist together gave them a rush.

The continued terrorizing and driving around America, when they noticed that getting away after every robbery was proving difficult, they got a new member in their group to be their getaway driver. After a rough start, the trio were doing well and were joined by Clyde’s brother and wife.

The five of them kept getting involved in shootouts and robbing that nothing seems clearer to you the view than expecting the end of the movie to be as it was.

The movie production had some serious setbacks, Warren Beatty bought the film rights and tried producing it after all previous failed attempts. He had the script re-written and began shooting after he convinced Arthur Penn to direct. Upon completion Beatty faced another problem Warner Bros refused to give the film a wide release, for fear of bad reception due to the movie sexual content and huge graphic violence, after Warren threatened to sue, it got a wide release and the $2.5 million production film raked in $70 million in the box office.

Now the movie is not totally honest to the real Bonnie and Clyde story. They did some changes in the characters, just to add some drama to the movie. The whole talk of Clyde’s sexual problem portrayed in the movie are just additions, also the humiliation of the Texas Ranger is fiction. C.W. Moss never existed, but was introduced as a merger of two other characters in the gang.

Now the movie wasn’t a total roller coaster ride, there were some moments when things went smooth and easy, but there is nothing like the awesome ending, the cinematic ending is classic. This is one of the good movies of the old days to see anytime.