BONNIE AND CLYDE

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway

BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967). Director: Arthur Penn. 

Bonnie and Clyde go on a crime spree robbing banks in the 1930's and become folk heroes to part of the population, but their days are numbered. This film was quite polarizing when it first came out, with some finding it slick and cinematic; others repellent and empty -- both viewpoints have validity. Warren Beatty [Splendor in the Grass] isn't bad as Clyde Barrow, the leader of a group of depression-era bank robbers, but he's never quite believable, either. The same could be said of Faye Dunaway [Mommie Dearest]  as Bonnie Parker, although she certainly demonstrates star-making vitality. The trouble with both of the leads is that they never seem quite as stupid as the people they're playing. Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons and Michael J. Pollard as relatives and fellow gang members are perhaps more on the mark. 

Estelle Parsons and Gene Hackman

Today Bonnie and Clyde seems almost benign next to Goodfellas and similar movies. The picture doesn't really glorify these murdering robbers so much as it shows how pathetic and desperate they and their self-absorbed lives really are. But the movie can't really be considered a serious examination of these people because the characters lack dimension and the film can't seem to make up its mind whether or not to take them -- or itself, in fact -- seriously. In any case, the picture is generally entertaining and well-done, but it goes on about half an hour too long and is very Hollywood-ized to say the least. One could make a strong case that William Witney's The Bonnie Parker Story, made ten years earlier, is the better picture. 

Verdict: Okay, but maybe watch Little Caesar instead. **1/2.

MICKEY ONE

MICKEY ONE (1965). Director: Arthur Penn.

Mickey One is the stage name of a young comic (Warren Beatty) who is on the run because he owes money to the mob. His landlady -- apparently he owes her money, too -- rents his apartment to a young lady, Jenny (Alexandra Stewart), who sort of becomes Mickey's girlfriend after he refuses to move out. But what difference does it make -- because Alan M. Surgal's screenplay has no real plot and paper-thin characters. Beatty really has nobody to play, but at least he has charisma if little else. Stewart mopes about and makes little impression, probably no fault of hers. Franchot Tone and Hurd Hatfield give vivid, even memorable performances, but their characters are also cyphers and the movie wastes their talents. Director Penn opts for a stylish approach which never disguises the essential emptiness of the film and is remarkably pretentious as well -- Penn is no Fellini. Worse still, the movie is excrutiatingly tedious. An example of the subtlety of the picture is Hatfield, as a club manager, banging on the door behind which stands Beatty and shouting "I want you!" Later Beatty winds up for no real reason in a junkyard and comes across a bunch of derelicts, one of whom campily gives him come-hither looks -- oy vey! This movie is so awful on so many levels it isn't funny.

Verdict: One of the worst movies ever made. 1/2*.

ALICE'S RESTAURANT

ALICE'S RESTAURANT (1969). Director: Arthur Penn.

Arthur Penn thought it would be a good idea to make a movie out of Arlo Guthrie's 18 minute song "Alice's Restaurant," which detailed how a littering charge supposedly kept him out of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, even an 18 minute song isn't enough to base a whole movie on, and there is no real story, or even interesting characters, in Venable Herndon's screenplay to hold your attention. Alice Brock, the owner of the actual restaurant, is brought into the story (played by Pat Quinn), along with Ray Brock (James Broderick, father of Matthew), but they have little dimension. Peter Seeger briefly plays himself but we never really get to know him. Arlo Guthrie isn't a bad actor, although some might say he's only playing himself as well and trading on a likable personality. Surely the events of this troubled era in United States history had more drama to it than this picture, which is sometimes as boring as any dull home movie, would suggest? William Obanhein, the actual police officer who arrested Guthrie for littering, also plays himself, but the movie doesn't bother to develop him as a character, either. The suddenly downbeat ending is pretentious; the movie tries to say something but doesn't. Nevertheless, it made money and Arthur Penn was inexplicably nominated for an Oscar that he didn't win. The song itself is moderately catchy but hardly a classic.

Verdict: Perfect tedium. *1/2.