Bonnie and Clyde (film)

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Bonnie and Clyde
movie poster for Bonnie and Clyde
Directed by	Arthur Penn
Produced by	Warren Beatty
Written by	David Newman & Robert Benton Robert Towne uncredited
Starring	Warren Beatty Faye Dunaway Michael J. Pollard Gene Hackman Estelle Parsons
Music by	Charles Strouse
Cinematography	Burnett Guffey
Release date(s)	August 4, 1967 (Montréal Film Festival)
Running time	111 min.
Language	English
Budget	$2,500,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is a film about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, bank robbers who roamed the central United States during the Great Depression. The film was directed by Arthur Penn, and starred Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker. The screenplay was written by David Newman and Robert Benton. Robert Towne and Beatty have been listed as providing uncredited contributions to the script.

The movie was partly filmed in and around Dallas, Texas, in some cases using actual locations that the real Bonnie and Clyde either robbed or used as hideouts. Only loosely based on Barrow and Parker, the film frequently deviates from the historical record. Rather, it attests more to the zeitgeist of the late 1960's, and to the lingering appeal of the legend of a group of robbers who, in the popular imagination of their disaffected contemporaries, lived out the dream of violent social rebellion.

Bonnie and Clyde is a landmark film in cinema history as it is regarded as the first film of the New Hollywood era, an era often regarded as Hollywood's second golden age. The film broke taboos, a common characteristic of the era and its success opened doors for other films.

Estelle Parsons won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrail of Blanche Barrow, Clyde's sister-in-law, and Burnett Guffey won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The film is #27 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years, 100 Movies", #13 on its list of 100 American thrillers, and #65 on its list of 100 American romances. The line "We rob banks" was also ranked at #41 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest Movie Quotes. Bonnie and Clyde has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Some critics cite Joseph H. Lewis's Gun Crazy, a film noir about a bank-robbing couple, as a major influence.

When released, the film was controversial for supposedly glorifying murderers, and for its level of graphic violence and gore, unprecedented at the time. Bonnie and Clyde was the first film to feature extensive use of squibs — small explosive charges, often mounted with bags of red liquid and fired from inside an actor's clothes to simulate bullet hits.

Contents 1 Key differences between film and historical record 2 Music 3 Taglines 4 Trivia 5 See also 6 External links

[edit] Key differences between film and historical record

• The actual account of Bonnie and Clyde is significantly more complex. Amongst other things, it includes other gang members, repeated jailings, and other murders and assorted crimes. The film is not meant to be seen as a historical work.

• The movie portrayed Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (Denver Pyle) as a vengeful bungler who had been captured, humiliated, and released by Bonnie and Clyde. The first time the real Hamer met either of them was when he staged the successful ambush that killed both of them on May 23, 1934.

• One of the film's major characters, "C.W. Moss", was a composite of two members of the Barrow Gang; William Daniel "W.D." Jones and Henry Methvin.

• While Blanche Barrow approved the depiction of her in the original version of the film's script, she objected to the futher re-writes, and at the film's release, complained loudly over Estelle Parsons' Oscar-winning performance of her, stating "That film made me look like a screaming horse's ass!"

[edit] Music

The background music "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" by Flatt and Scruggs was made famous by this movie.

[edit] Taglines

• "They're Young...They're In Love...And They Kill People!"
• "They met in 1930. She was stark naked, yelling at him out the window while he tried to steal her mother's car. In a matter of minutes they robbed a store, fired a few shots and then stole somebody else's car. At that point they had not yet been introduced."

[edit] Trivia

• The only two members of the actual Barrow Gang that were still alive at film's release were Blanche Barrow and William Daniel Jones.
• Warner Brothers had so little faith in the film that, in a then-unprecedented move, they offered its first-time producer Warren Beatty 40% of the gross instead of a minimal fee. The movie then went on to gross over $50 million.
• The poem that Bonnie Parker is reading as the police raid their hideout is The Story of Suicide Sal[1], one of only two poems by the real Bonnie Parker known to exist (The other being The Story of Bonnie and Clyde[2]).

[edit] See also

• 1930s Nostalgia Films

[edit] External links

• Bonnie and Clyde at the Internet Movie Database
• Review of the Movie by Roger Ebert
• Theatrical trailer (wmv, 28-300kbps)