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FILM 1163: BONNIE AND CLYDE

TRIVIA: The characters Eugene Grizzard and Velma Davis (played by Gene Wilder and Evans Evans) are based on Dillard Darby and Sophia Stone of Ruston, Louisiana. On the night of April 27, 1933, Darby and Stone were briefly kidnapped by the Barrow gang, who had stolen Darby's car. After driving around Ruston for several hours, Darby and Stone were released unharmed. During the drive, when Darby mentioned that he was an undertaker, Bonnie Parker remarked, "Well, maybe you'll work on me someday." A year later, Darby did just that. He was one of the undertakers who worked on Bonnie Parker's body after she and Clyde Barrow were killed in the roadside ambush near Gibsland, Louisiana, in May, 1934.

The real Blanche Barrow sued Warner Brothers over the way she was depicted in the film. In reality, Barrow was the same age as Bonnie Parker, arguably better looking than her, she was not a preacher's daughter and had married Buck knowing full well that he was an escaped prisoner and twice divorced.

Roger Ebert had only been a film critic for six months when he saw this film and hailed it as the first masterpiece he had seen on the job.

During one of the bank robberies, Buck Barrow (Gene Hackman) does a leap over the tellers' cage. This was a stunt routinely pulled by John Dillinger, who in turn learned it from watching Douglas Fairbanks in the "Zorro" movies.

Michael J. Pollard didn't realize in eating scenes that you don't actually eat all the food because of the possibility of repeated takes. Sure enough, he soon regretted it in the scene in which the outlaws kidnap a couple and eat their lunch in the car. By the 12th take, Pollard was feeling decidedly ill, having had to eat 12 whole hamburgers.

Bonnie's family reunion scene was shot through a window screen to give it a hazy, nostalgic effect.

Heavily influenced by the French New Wave directors, mainly through its rapid shifts of tone and its choppy editing.

Before deciding to play the role himself, producer Warren Beatty's first choice for the role of Clyde Barrow was musician and composer Bob Dylan, who resembled the actual Barrow more strongly than Beatty.

When Warren Beatty was on board as producer only, his sister Shirley MacLaine was a strong possibility to play Bonnie. But when Beatty decided to play Clyde himself, for obvious reasons he decided not to use MacLaine.

Warner Brothers had so little faith in the film that, in an unprecedented move, it offered its first-time producer Warren Beatty 40% of the gross instead of a minimal fee. The movie then went on to gross over $50 million.

Debut of Gene Wilder.

When scouting for locations, production designer Dean Tavoularis was delighted to see that a lot of the smaller Texas towns hadn't changed much from the 1930s.