History Film / BonnieAndClyde

* AssholeVictim: They rob banks, which after seeing what the banks have done to the poor folks of the country by foreclosing on their property, makes them look not as bad after all. However, this better describes John Dillinger than it would the real Bonnie and Clyde.

** In the film, Bonnie encounters Clyde for the first time when he tries to steal her mother's car. In real life, it's believed the two actually met because of a mutual friend with a broken arm for whom Bonnie was caring at the time; Clyde happened to show up at the friend's house while Bonnie was in the kitchen making hot cocoa.

* AnimatedAdaptation: In the waning days of WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes, Creator/RobertMcKimson directed two cartoons featuring [[http://looneytunes.wikia.com/wiki/Bunny_and_Claude Bunny and Claude]], Bonnie and Clyde reimagined as rabbits who steal carrots, with a strong resemblance to Beatty and Dunaway. Since the film had been a big hit for Creator/WarnerBrothers, the whole thing was something of a SelfParody for the studio.

* ScreamingWoman: Blanche, much to the chagrin of the rest of the gang (especially [[ActionGirl Bonnie]]), as well as to the real-life Blanche. The film deliberately played this up in order to make Bonnie seem "cooler".

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: A big offender. The film's Bonnie and Clyde has more in common with bank robbers John Dillinger and "Pretty Boy" Floyd, who were also active at the time and held considerably more public sympathy, whereas the public eventually grew tired of Bonnie and Clyde's constant violence and cop killings and called for their deaths.
** The real Clyde was noted for having a HairTriggerTemper and bordered on AxCrazy at his worst. He often robbed and assaulted bystanders during bank robberies, killed both police and civilians at the slightest provocation, and left hostages tied to trees in the woods. This ruthlessness also extended to his own gang members. In a 1968 interview with Magazine/{{Playboy}}, former Barrow Gang member W.D. Jones described an incident where Clyde had threatened to kill him [[DisproportionateRetribution over not changing a tire quickly enough]], Bonnie had to pull a gun on Clyde to make him back off. One gang member not portrayed in the film, Raymond Hamilton, left the gang over feeling that Clyde was too violent to stay with, which earned him the hatred of Bonnie and Clyde that lasted until their deaths.
** Buck also gets this treatment. He was described as the most hot-tempered of the Barrows, often advocating [[LeaveNoWitnesses killing hostages]] and had once tied two police officers they had captured to a tree with ''barbed wire'', something that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even Clyde found distasteful]]. Buck often got into heated arguments with Clyde as well, as he was uncomfortable taking orders from his younger brother.
** Even contemporary writers made note of how far the film goes in this regard; Newspaper columnist Mike Royko, shortly after the film came out, printed a number of angry letters from relatives of the gang's real-life victims offended by their romanticization. One said, "They got my father. They did him with shotguns. He lived for three days."

** Clyde's prison time is largely glossed over, and his motive for the crime spree is shown as anger towards the corruption of the banks. Historians now believe that his prison time had a massive effect on him due to the brutality he suffered while serving his sentence, and his crime spree was largely a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the Texas prison system and perhaps society at large. Admittedly, the details behind Clyde's prison time only came out [[DatedHistory well after the film's release]], and it is highly unlikely the filmmakers could have known about it at the time.

** The film also leaves out the Grapevine shootings, where Clyde (and possibly Henry Methvin) killed two passing police officers without provocation. This event was the point where the public lost all remaining sympathy for Bonnie and Clyde and was a deciding factor in their deaths by ambush, in part due to an eyewitness claiming that Bonnie had walked up and executed one of the officers ForTheEvulz (said eyewitness later admitted to making this little "fact" up).
** The ambush that kills Bonnie and Clyde is portrayed considerably differently than reality. The film's ambush has Clyde outside the car and unarmed by the time the shooting starts, and the motivation for an ambush is primarily Hamer's revenge for his previous treatment as their hostage. The real ambush was conducted by a six-man posse including Hamer, each armed with an automatic rifle, shotgun, and pistol. As soon as their car was spotted and identified, the posse emptied all of their weapons into the car as it passed by. The reason why a shoot-to-kill ambush with [[NoKillLikeOverkill such excessive firepower]] was [[IDidWhatIHadToDo deemed necessary]] was due to the sheer number of people they had killed; The gang had been credited with the deaths of nine police officers by this point, most of whom had been killed outside of robberies. As at least one previous ambush against them had failed, police weren't interested in taking any further chances.

* HollywoodHistory[=/=]VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Lots.

* HistoricalBadassUpgrade: Bonnie takes an active role in the gang's robberies in the film. In real-life, there is no evidence she participated in any of the gang's robberies. While there is multiple eyewitness accounts of her participating in several of the gang's gunfights against the police, there is no known evidence anyone was hit or killed by her gunfire.

** The real Clyde was noted for having a HairTriggerTemper and bordered on AxCrazy at his worst. He often robbed and assaulted bystanders during bank robberies, killed both police and civilians at the slightest provocation, and left hostages tied to trees in the woods. This ruthlessness also extended to his own gang members. In a 1968 interview with Playboy, former Barrow Gang member W.D. Jones described an incident where Clyde had threatened to kill him over not changing a tire quickly enough, Bonnie had to pull a gun on Clyde to make him back off. One gang member not portrayed in the film, Raymond Hamilton, left the gang over feeling that Clyde was too violent to stay with, which earned him the hatred of Bonnie and Clyde that lasted until their deaths.

** Clyde's prison time is largely glossed over, and his motive for the crime spree is shown as anger towards the corruption of the banks. Historians now believe that his prison time had a massive effect on him due to the brutality he suffered while serving his sentence, and his crime spree was largely a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the Texas prison system and perhaps society at large. Admittedly, the details behind Clyde's prison time only came out [[HistoryMarchesOn well after the film's release]], and it is highly unlikely the filmmakers could have known about it at the time.

* DownerEnding: A ForegoneConclusion.

* MohsScaleOfViolenceHardness: It rates a 7, which is pretty high for a 1967 movie, largely due to the blood splatter from Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) pistol-whipping the man in the grocery show in the head, the bank teller's bloody headshot through a car window, and, of course, the [[spoiler: the deaths of the two main characters at the end, complete with a small chunk of Clyde's scalp flying off, if you look carefully enough]].

* PresentDayPast: The writers and director deliberately downplayed period accuracy to make the film more of a commentary on the '60s. The world of the movie is partly inspired by the '30s and partly by the movies of the FrenchNewWave.

** Buck also gets this treatment. He was described as the most hot-tempered of the Barrows, often advocating [[LeaveNoWitnesses killing hostages]] and had once tied two police officers they had captured to a tree with ''barbed wire'', something that even Clyde found distasteful. Buck often got into heated arguments with Clyde as well, as he was uncomfortable taking orders from his younger brother.

* AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame: An outlaw couple makes it to the end, in a car, then they get a rain of bullets for their troubles.

* AffablyEvil: Don't you like Bonnie and Clyde?

* AssholeVictim: They rob banks, which after seeing what the banks have done to the poor folks of the country by foreclosing on their property, makes them look not as bad after all. However, this better describes UsefulNotes/JohnDillinger than it would the real Bonnie and Clyde.

** Plain-faced, 90-pound Bonnie Parker and shrimpy 5'6 little Clyde Barrow, played by foxy Faye Dunaway and tall, handsome Creator/WarrenBeatty.

** The real Clyde was noted for having a HairTriggerTemper with actions that bordered on AxCrazy at his worst; In a 1968 interview with Playboy, former Barrow Gang member W.D. Jones said Clyde was willing to kill anyone "in a hot instant", and described an incident where Clyde had threatened to kill Jones over not changing a tire quickly enough, Bonnie had to pull a gun on Clyde to make him back off. One gang member not portrayed in the film, Raymond Hamilton, left the gang over feeling that Clyde was too violent to stay with, which earned him the hatred of Bonnie and Clyde that lasted until their deaths.

** Clyde's prison time is largely glossed over, and his motive for the crime spree is shown as anger towards the corruption of the banks. Historians believe that prison time had a massive effect on him due to the brutality he suffered while he served his sentence, and his crime spree was largely a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the prison system and society at large.

** Clyde's [[TheLoinsSleepTonight impotence]] as portrayed in the film has no known basis in reality, though it is likely the filmmakers based this on risque rumors of both Bonnie and Clyde having sexual relationships with other members of their gang. Such rumors were [[DocumentaryOfLies printed as fact]] by the 1963 book ''The Dillinger Days'', and in fact may have been the source for the idea.

** The ambush that kills Bonnie and Clyde is portrayed considerably differently than reality. The film's ambush has Clyde outside the car and unarmed by the time the shooting starts, and the motivation for an ambush is primarily Hamer's revenge for his previous treatment as their hostage. The real ambush was conducted by a six-man posse including Hamer, each armed with an automatic rifle, shotgun, and pistol. As soon as their car was spotted and identified, the posse emptied all weapons into their car as it passed by. The reason why a shoot-to-kill ambush with [[NoKillLikeOverkill such excessive firepower]] was [[IDidWhatIHadToDo deemed necessary]] was due to the sheer number of people they had killed; The gang had been credited with the deaths of nine police officers by this point, most of whom had been killed outside of robberies. As at least one previous ambush against them had failed, police weren't interested in taking any further chances.

** The events the film covers have a number of details changed to make the pair more sympathetic. For example, the butcher robbery in the film is based off a real incident where Clyde executed an unarmed shopkeeper during a robbery because [[DisproportionateRetribution the man had talked back to him]]. The sequence with Eugene and Velma is very loosely based on a real incident where a man and woman were kidnapped by Bonnie and Clyde for unintentionally foiling a bank robbery. They intended to take the two into the woods to kill them, but were talked out of murder ''[[BadassBystander by the hostages themselves]]''. The film also leaves out the Grapevine shootings, where Clyde (and possibly Henry Methvin as well) killed two passing police officers without provocation, which was the point where the public lost sympathy for Bonnie and Clyde and was a major factor in their deaths by ambush.
** The ambush that kills Bonnie and Clyde is portrayed considerably differently than reality. The film's ambush has Clyde outside the car and unarmed by the time the shooting starts, and the motivation for an ambush is primarily Hamer's revenge for his previous treatment as their hostage. The real ambush was conducted by a six-man posse, all of whom were armed with an automatic rifle, shotgun, and pistol, which were all emptied into their car as it passed by the posse. The reason why an ambush with such excessive firepower was deemed necessary was due to the sheer number of people they had killed up to that point (especially police - the gang was credited with the deaths of nine officers by this point, several of whom had been killed unprovoked). As at least one previous ambush against them had failed, police weren't interested in taking any further chances.

** Clyde's [[TheLoinsSleepTonight impotence]] (or {{Asexuality}}, depending on what you want to believe) as portrayed in the film has no known basis in reality. There had been a number of rumors about both Bonnie and Clyde's sexuality both before and after their deaths, which had been [[DocumentaryOfLies printed as fact]] by the contemporary book ''The Dillinger Days'' which the filmmakers might have gotten this idea from.

* MoreDakka: How the title characters went down, in the movie and in reality. The two had killed at least nine police officers and several civilians over the course of their career, so the cops weren't taking any chances, even though one of the posse members, Sheriff Henderson Jordan did debate whether or not to try attempting to take them alive.

* The gang's preferred weapons in reality were [[{{BFG}} Browning Automatic Rifles]] stolen from military armories that left police outgunned in confrontations, whereas the film has them using Thompson sub-machine guns, likely to evoke the classic Hollywood "Gangster" image of the time.

* AntiHero: Clyde is a thief and murderer, but is given a more sympathetic treatment by the film than historically.
* {{Asexuality}}: WordOfGod may have said that Clyde is supposed to be impotent, but the movie never states so and his entire sexual behaviour comes across much more like this. (For example: Why doesn't he try to please the very frustrated Bonnie in other ways than penetrative sex, if he is sexually attracted to her but just suffers from ED? How come his supposed chronic physical problem just spontaneously resolves itself in the end without comment? Why does he act so very awkward when they first try to have sex, and doesn't give himself more than a few seconds time to react to Bonnie's touch before giving up?) Considering this was made in the 60s and the general expectation of AManIsAlwaysEager, it's entirely possible that the writer based Clyde's behaviour on somebody who actually was asexual, but who he thought must be impotent. Or that WordOfGod actually meant "unwilling to have sex" but didn't have a better word for it, in the same way that asexual women were called "frigid".
-->'''Clyde:''' I might as well tell you right off: I ain’t much of a lover boy. That don’t mean nothing personal about you. I mean… I… I never saw no percentage in it.

* BangBangBANG: Deliberately done, as Warren Beatty wanted the gunshots to overpower the soundtrack. This lead to at least one case of a projectionist turning down the sound during gunfights, blaming the loud gunshots on bad sound mixing.

* TheGreatDepression: The backdrop for the film, and, as Clyde believes, the main reason for the gang's vocation. In real life, it is believed that Clyde's motivation was revenge against abuses he suffered during his imprisonment in [[HellholePrison Eastham]].

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: A big offender. The real Bonnie and Clyde were nowhere near as sympathetic as the film portrays them. Clyde in particular was noted for having a HairTriggerTemper and bordered on AxCrazy at his worst.[[note]]In a 1968 interview, former Barrow Gang member W.D. Jones described Clyde as willing to kill anyone "in a hot instant" and had once threatened to kill Jones for not changing a tire quickly enough, Bonnie had to pull a gun on Clyde to make him back off. The real Blanche also described Clyde as holding no mercy for his innocent victims.[[/note]] The film's Clyde has more in common with bank robbers John Dillinger and "Pretty Boy" Floyd, who were also active at the time and held considerably more public sympathy, whereas the public eventually grew tired of Bonnie and Clyde's constant violence and cop killings. Newspaper columnist Mike Royko, shortly after the film came out, printed a number of angry letters from relatives of the gang's real-life victims offended by their romanticization. One said, "They got my father. They did him with machine guns. He lived for three days."
** Buck also gets this treatment. He was described as the most hot-tempered of the Barrows, often advocating [[LeaveNoWitnesses killing hostages]] and had once tied two police officers they had captured to a tree with ''barbed wire'', something that even Clyde found distasteful.

* HollywoodHistory[=/=]VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Lots. For starters, C.W. Moss [[CompositeCharacter is a composite]] of W.D. Jones and the man who betrayed Bonnie and Clyde, Henry Methvin. Other gang members are omitted. A nasty car accident on the night of June 11, 1933 that left Bonnie with a permanently lame leg is not in the film. The gang's preferred weapons were [[{{BFG}} Browning Automatic Rifles]] stolen from military armories that left police outgunned in confrontations, whereas the film has them using Thompson sub-machine guns. Clyde died in the car with Bonnie, instead of getting out as we see in the film. Frequent visits to their families and the fact that Bonnie and Clyde were together for two years before starting their crime spree are also omitted. The events the film covers have a number of details changed to make the pair more sympathetic. For example, the butcher robbery in the film is based off a real incident where Clyde executed a shopkeeper during a robbery because [[DisproportionateRetribution the man had talked back to him]].

* TheLoinsSleepTonight: Clyde is portrayed by the film as impotent. Though there's no known basis for this in reality.

A 1967 biopic about the famous 1930s bank-robbing duo of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Faye Dunaway and Creator/WarrenBeatty.

* AssholeVictim: They rob banks, which after seeing what the banks have done to the poor folks of the country by foreclosing on their property, makes them look not as bad after all. However, this better describes John Dillinger than it would the real Bonnie and Clyde.