If you're ever visiting my former hometown of Denton, Texas, you owe it to yourself to do two things.
Number one, go to Recycled Books and Records. It's right across the street from the old courthouse and it's perhaps the greatest used bookstore in the world. When I was going to college at UNT, I would spend hours in Recycled Books. Not only do they have three floors of books but they have some really nice apartments on the fourth floor. I attended my share of hazily remembered parties in those apartments.
The second thing that you must do is stop by the Campus Theater. The Camps Theater is located on the other side of the old courthouse and it is a true historical landmark. (It's also the home of the Denton Community Theatre.) When you step inside of the theater, be sure to look for a plaque on the wall. The plaque will inform you that, in 1967, Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde premiered at the Campus Theater.
Bonnie and Clyde not only premiered in Denton but it was also filmed around North Texas. This was a pragmatic decision, made to minimize studio interference. Even with that in mind, that's still the way it should have been because Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are true Texas legends. In the 1930s, they were young, they robbed banks, and they killed people. Much like many of the outlaws of the era, they became folk heroes and they died in a hail of bullets.
In the picture above, Clyde is short, scrawny, and slightly handsome in a class clown sort of way. Bonnie, meanwhile, is even shorter than Clyde and has the hard look of someone who has never known an easy life. Both of them have a look that should be familiar to anyone who has spent any time in the small towns that dot the North Texas landscape. They look like real people. They don't look like film stars.
In other words, Bonnie and Clyde is not a documentary. But that doesn't matter. 50 years after it was first released Bonnie and Clyde remains a powerful and, even more importantly, extremely entertaining film. When the film was released, it was controversial for it violence and, having recently rewatched it, I have to say that the violence still makes an impression. When guns are fired, the shots seem to literally explode in your ear. When people are torn apart by bullets, they die terrible deaths and the film's most graphic demises are reserved for its most likable characters. Towards the end of the film, with the Texas Rangers relentlessly closing in on Bonnie and Clyde, the tension becomes almost unbearable.
What makes the violence all the more disturbing is that it often interrupts scenes that, until the bullets started flying, were often humorous. A bank robbery starts out as a lark, becomes an exciting chase scene as Bonnie and Clyde attempt to escape, and suddenly turns into an act of shocking of violence when Clyde fire a gun and shoots a man point-blank in the face. Later, stopping to help an old farmer change a tire leads to a sudden ambush. Perhaps the film's outlook is best captured in a scene in which the Barrow gang cheerfully bonds with a hostage until they suddenly find out that he's an undertaker, a reminder that the promise of death is always present.
"Get him out of here!" Bonnie snaps.
Like many of the great gangster films, Bonnie and Clyde presents its outlaws as being folk heroes. They may rob banks and occasionally kill people but they look good doing it and they seem like they would be fun to hang out with. The thing that set Bonnie and Clyde apart from previous gangster films is that it refused to even pretend to condemn its bank robbers. The cops and the Texas Rangers are all on the side of the banks and the banks are on the side of big business. Bonnie and Clyde aren't outlaws. They're rebels. When they rob banks, they're not just taking money. They're standing up to the same establishment that was feared in the 30s, resented in the 60s, and hated today.
Clyde is played by Warren Beatty (who also produced the film) and Bonnie is played by Faye Dunaway and both of them give performances that literally define screen charisma. You never forget that you're watching two movie stars but, at the risk of repeating myself, Bonnie and Clyde is not meant to be a documentary. At times, it almost seems as if Beatty's Clyde and Dunaway's Bonnie know that they're characters in a gangster movie. They know that they're doomed because that's how gangster movies work so, as a result, they're determined to live as much life as possible before that final reel. The supporting cast — Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Wilder — are all great but the film is definitely a celebration of Beatty and Dunaway.
Bonnie and Clyde went from premiering at the Campus Theater to a best picture nomination. However, it lost to In The Heat of the Night.
For him even now I would die.
And never one "squawk" did I make.
And love him as long as I live.
This entry was posted in Film, Film Review and tagged Bonnie and Clyde, Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor, Estelle Parsons, Evans Evans, Faye Dunaway, Film, Gene Hackman, Gene Wilder, Lisa Marie Bowman, Mabel Cavitt, Michael J. Pollard, movie, review, Warren Beatty. Bookmark the permalink.
More often than not, Oscar gets it all wrong, and they certainly did when they didn't give Bonnie & Clyde Best Picture. I watched it again a few weeks ago, for about the tenth time, and it is still relevant and flawless.
It's great to see that you enjoyed and appreciated it as much as I did! I especially liked your "insider" knowledge of the locale where the film was made.
One more thought; … wouldn't the story of Suicide Sal make a great flick on its own?!