- "This here's Miss Bonnie Parker. I'm Clyde Barrow. We rob banks." That single line serves as the plot summary for, the most famous quote from, and the essence of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. When Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) says it, it's because he's not ashamed of what he is. When Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) echoes it, it's because she's just happy to have some excitement in her life. Naturally enough, the two meet when Clyde is looking to steal a car that belongs to Bonnie's mother (Mabel Cavitt). Freed from what she obviously views as a prison, Bonnie rushes out of the house to meet this interesting man, only barely getting her dress on before she gets out the door. Before long, the two are robbing a convenience store, and it doesn't take them long to move up to banks.
- To hear Clyde tell it, the couple robs banks because they're trying to stand up for the poor people who have had their farms and homes taken away from them during the Depression. However, that explanation seems at odds with the fact that they also rob grocery stores, steal cars, and occasionally kill policemen. For that matter, there are lots of things about Clyde that don't quite add up, not the least of which is that he cut off a few toes in prison to get out of work duty. One might imagine that his jerky walk and clumsy mannerisms are partially attributable to a lack of toes, but I suspect Clyde's quirkiness is more deeply ingrained than that. And then there's his "peculiar ideas about love-making, which is no love-making at all." That last bit is hard for Bonnie to understand, especially when she obviously got a real sexual thrill from their first caper.
- Before you know it, the Barrow gang has expanded to include Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman), Buck's shrill wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), and the diminutive mechanic C.W. (Michael J. Pollard). While Clyde and Buck are two wrasslin', horseplayin' peas in a pod and C.W. is as stoic as can be, Bonnie and Blanche's wildly dissimilar personalities put them frequently at odds. Still, the gang functions well enough to embarrass a Texas ranger (Denver Pyle), kidnap some well-to-do citizens (Gene Wilder and Evans Evans), and even rob a few banks. As events progress, however, Bonnie realizes that she was wrong when she "thought we was really goin' somewhere." Even her clumsy poetry begins to acknowledge the inevitable outcome of "death for Bonnie and Clyde," an event the film eventually delivers in a memorably explicit fashion.
- As I was watching Bonnie and Clyde, I was amused by the realization that the reactions of the film's characters correspond surprisingly well to various public reactions to the film. I expect most viewers were like Blanche, initially hysterical and gradually accepting of what they saw. There were also the Bonnies who enjoyed the visceral thrill of the gang's exploits, and maybe even a few Clydes who really thought they were folk heroes. The most famously damning critical reactions align with the opinions of the Texas Ranger who saw the gang as nothing more than a bunch of degenerate outlaws. One easily imagines the religious crowd channeling C.W.'s father (Dub Taylor) in disliking Bonnie and Clyde because of their tattoos and sexuality rather than because they rob and kill. My own reaction is most similar to that of C.W., who likes Bonnie and Clyde well enough even if he is somewhat indifferent to the whole series of events. While I agree that the film is well-made and that the cast, especially Beatty and Dunaway, is generally strong, I have trouble convincing myself that this is a better film than its spiritual ancestor Gun Crazy or any of several other films about quirky gangsters (usually Edward G. Robinson or James Cagney) that predated it by thirty years. Sure, it's more violent, more risque, and more "New Wave," but are those really cinematic virtues?
- This was Gene Wilder's film debut.
- Apparently, the real Blanche objected to her portrayal as "a screaming horse's ass," which is about right. For reasons unknown, Parsons won an Oscar.
