Bonnie and Clyde – 1967

Never saw it.  Never wanted to see it.  Thought it was time I did.

I’ll say this.  Five minutes into the film and Faye Dunaway’s accent is making me want to kick her.  Also, I totally believe she had surgery on her jaw because it isn’t as distinctive in this film as it is in Network.

After a meet-cute where Clyde tries to steal Bonnie’s mother’s car, Clyde woos her into town and she flirts him into showing her he isn’t afraid to rob.  After making advances on him in the car, Clyde warns her he isn’t a lover.   Bonnie tries to leave but Clyde convinces her they’re good for each other.

I was promised sex and violence.  This is supposed to be the film that changed the way people made films.  So far it’s all a bunch of talk.

So Clyde can’t get it up and Bonnie gets all hot and bothered by crime and shooting guns and the like.  Got it.

This film has not made a convincing argument why Bonnie would just up and leave her life to go off with a guy she can’t even have sex with.  I’m just saying.

The whole “…and we rob banks” line.  Probably the only scene I remember from this film.  Someday I’ll find out if there really is something wrong with Michael J. Pollard.

And Clyde just killed a bank manager.  Shot him right in the face.  Not really as graphic as it sounds but for 1967 I’m sure it was.  Clyde feels guilty about it but Bonnie just seems to be enjoying the money…and Clyde.

Quite amusing that Warren Beatty plays a guy who can’t get it up.

Here’s Gene Hackman to add to the list of actors in this film who can’t do a Texan accent.

I do believe we’re developing “the gang”.

Clyde tells his brother he “had to” kill the man he did.  Well, as long as he HAD to I guess it’s okay.

So I’m still confused at what got people going about this film.  Because these people were enjoying their life of crime?  Are there people who would even entertain the thought that these people didn’t enjoy what they did?

Buck, Clyde’s brother (hello Gene Hackman) does not appreciate Bonnie’s poetry.  I think if I was part of a bank robbing gang, I’d be annoyed with one of the members forcing me to listen to their poetry.

Here come the cops…and the sister in law Blanche (Hell Ms. Parsons) starts with the screaming.  Many cops die in this scene.  Were there really any people who though Bonnie and Clyde were heroes?

After escaping the shooting and killing some cops, Bonnie fights with Blanche and the Clyde…kicking him in the nuts (with her words) by impugning his manhood.  But then she apologizes and off they go.

What is the point of the scene with the Ranger?  In real life he’s the guy who brought them in so in the film Arthur Penn makes him look like a bumbling fool?  What’s the point?

Spitting in Bonnie’s face after she kisses you?  Not a smart move Ranger.

More bank robbing and this time they make sure their victims know who they are.  “We’re the Barrow boys!”  Alrighty then.

Blanche annoying everyone because she wants her share of the take.  Does she get shot?

Gene Wilder…in his film debut…getting his car stolen and deciding to chase after it with his girlfriend in her car.  Holy cow I just Googled Gene Wilder and he’s 77 years old.  I need a drink.

And it’s over for Gene.  Bonnie makes Clyde boot them out when she learns Wilder’s character is an undertaker.  Flash to the next scene and Bonnie is missing in wheat field with the gang searching for her.  She doesn’t want to die, I’m guessing.  She wants to see her “Mama”.  ‘kay.

I don’t think they emphasize enough how young both Bonnie and Clyde were.  Neither made it to 25.  Jesus.

Bonnie gets to see her family.  Saying her goodbyes, I suppose.  Bonnie’s mom tells Clyde she’s scared.  Clyde tries to put her at ease but just comes across as totally delusional.  She tells them to keep running and she takes off.  G’bye mama.

Bonnie is crabby so everyone but she, Clyde and Buck go get food.  She has “the blues”.  This is why young people shouldn’t make rash decisions.

Dunaway and Beatty make an awfully pretty couple.

Would you let your wife go on a food run with Michael J Pollard?  Me neither.  No harm or foul, just talking about being Christians until someone at the diner sees his gun. That can’t be good.

Lots of shooting when the cops show up and they even have hand grenades.  The film is almost over and I’ve seen nothing that I would deem offensive (I mean, killing the cops, yes, but as far as sex and violence go, I mean).

Buck and Blanche are both hurt and there is still shooting being done.  How do you take care of the wounded when you can’t take them to the hospital?

The psychotic look on Beatty’s face while he drives his wounded brother and everyone else is probably the best acting he’s done in this film.  Not that he’s bad in it but that look is just mesmerizing.

Blanche is blind and Buck is dying…things are bad.  Buck dies in his brother’s arms and I know I should feel sorry about this but I don’t, I really don’t.

Wait a minute…is he dead?  They just stuffed him in the car getting away from more cops but it looked like he put himself in the car.  Maybe he just passed out in Clyde’s arms.

Hey, this scene is just like that photo I saw of the real Blanche, fighting to get out of the grasp of the police while she watches her husband dying.  Well done.  Historically speaking AND acting wise.

The real Blanche trying to get to Buck.  It fascinates me that this photo exists!

The trio of Bonnie, Clyde and Michael J Pollard take up with a hobo family or something and get water to take care of an injured Bonnie and Clyde.  CW, that’s Michael J Pollard’s name.  I finally remember this when he goes to his daddy’s house to take are of them.

Clyde is not happy that the newspapers say he left his brother to die.  He’s pretty much gone off the deep end now and Bonnie’s just trying to keep him from being crazy.

Meanwhile, CW’s pa is more pissed about his tattoo than about his being part of a bank-robbing, cop-killing gang.  The old  man has his priorities.

The Ranger they humiliated goes to visit blind old Blanche.  He’s appealing to the preacher’s daughter in her to find out CW’s name.  Blanche, true to her character through this entire film, gives it up easily.

Bonnie reads Clyde her poem about the two of them as they sit in the car in the rain.  Clyde sends it in and it gets published in the paper.  Clyde is happy to be immortalized.  I wouldn’t be so happy.

CW’s paw tells him not to get in the car with them…he knows what’s coming and made a deal to spare his son but CW is too dumb to believe him.

Hey, whaddaya know he listened.  He’s in the hardware store getting light bulbs for his daddy.  Sure his is.  Bonnie leaves the car to get him, leaving Clyde alone and waiting for the ambush.

Clyde sees the police and uses a fake name to get Bonnie back in the car while CW watches from the window of the store as he thinks he sees them evade the police.

Bonnie and Clyde see CW’s father in the road…and he dives  under a truck as the police approach, shooting Bonnie in the car and Clyde next to the car.  LOTS of bullets…lots of blood.  Still not as graphic as the films are today.  Really well done, actually.

These people were well-known cop killers.  Sadly, it makes sense that the cops chose to ambush them rather than try to take them in.

On the cops taking in the bloody scene, we fade to black and “The End”.

Had I seen this one at the movies when it first came out (ignoring the fact that it came out a year before I was born) I think it would have hit me hard to watch them get shot moments after happily yammering about nothing and then having the film end short.  Sure they were murderous bank robbers but they were so young.  It’s never a good feeling to see young people killed.   Even in a film.

Really dug this one.  Much more than I expected.

http://www.youtube.com/v/q-PMx3YvCGY?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0

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