Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde is a 1967 film loosely based on the lives and deaths of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, two 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.

Estelle Parsons won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal 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.

Bonnie and Clyde is also 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.

Plot
Bored with life, Bonnie Parker meets a young drifter named Clyde Barrow. Clyde dreams of a life of crime that will free him from the hardships of the Great Depression. Bonnie and Clyde fall in love, and embark on a crime spree across the American Southwest, robbing small banks and becoming celebrities in the process.

People they rob seem to express pride in being robbed by the two, who portray themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods. Lawmen quickly set their sights on them, however, labelling them as dangerous criminals.

Soon, the romance begins to fade from the duo's crime spree, as they become wanted murders, and their flight from justice becomes more desperate. Finally, they are ambushed and gunned down by lawmen.

Selected quotes

 * "This here's Miss Bonnie Parker. I'm Clyde Barrow. We rob banks." - Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow
 * "Well why not? I earned my share same as everybody. Well, I coulda got killed same as everybody. And I'm wanted by the law same as everybody... I'm a nervous wreck and that's the truth. I have to take sass from Miss Bonnie Parker all the time. I deserve mine." - Estelle Parsons as Blanche Barrow

Controversy
The film frequently deviated from the historical record, and sanitized the more ugly and depraved aspects of both Barrow and Parker in order to portray them as multi-faceted characters. Others have speculated that the film's writers wished to portray them as sympathetic social revolutionaries, given political fashions of the day.

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.

The film also omitted many of the killings for which the real Barrow and his associates were responsible. (Barrow was a probable shooter in approximately ten murders, and Parker was believed to have participated in the cold-blooded killing of two police officers and the wounding of several others). The movie erroneously portrayed Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (Denver Pyle) as a vengeful bungler who had been captured, humiliated, and released by Bonnie and Clyde. However, 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. At the time, he was not a Texas Ranger.

Trivia

 * The background music "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" by Flatt and Scruggs has been made famous by this movie.
 * 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.
 * Some critics cite Joseph H. Lewis's Gun Crazy (1949), a film noir about a bank-robbing couple, as a major influence.