Reviewed by Richard Chatten
Dir: Arthur Penn | US Comedy Caper 1967
Bonnie and Clyde was a film that combined the nostalgia for the early thirties that had spawned the TV series ‘The Untouchables’ with the new taste for graphic violence; which at the time generated a lot of adverse publicity due to its emphasis on graphic violence.
Arthur Penn’s crime caper was inspired by American outlaws, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who went on a crime spree across the Central United States during the Great Depression robbing banks and stores until the police caught up with them in Louisiana on May 23, 1934.
Their story has since become legendary, inspiring books, films, and musicals. But title pair Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway bear little resemblance to the half-wittted yokel with a childhood reputation for torturing animals and his shrewish girlfriend.
It all looks ravishing due to the fab gear and Burnett Guffey Oscar-winning colour photography. But am I alone in finding all this rather inappropriate?
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