The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde (1968)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Larry Buchanan

Writer:

Larry Buchanan (writer)

Genre:

Drama | Crime

Tagline:

Their thing revealed like it happened! Love! Perversion! Blood and Death!

Plot Keywords:

Killing Of Bonnie And Clyde | Docudrama | Independent Film | Based On True Story | Character Name In Title

Cast

Burl Ives	...	Narrator (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jo Enterentree	...	Bonnie Parker
Frank Hamer	...	Himself
Floyd Hamilton	...	Himself
John Jenkins	...	Himself
Lucky Mosley	...	Clyde Barrow

Also Known As:

Bonnie and Clyde: Myth or Madness? (USA)

Runtime:

USA:75 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Dal-Art Films

Movie Connections:

Featured in Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 9 (2002) (V)

Docudrama of the Dark Side of Bonnie and Clyde

The film is a documentary in the fashion of Unsolved Mysteries or programs on The History, Discovery, or Learning Channels which mix talking head experts and interviews with recreations. The purpose is to tell the real story of Bonnie and Clyde, and Frank Hamer, the man who hunted them down and killed them. It was made in answer to the Beatty/Dunaway Bonnie and Clyde which twisted the facts and made the outlaw pair out to be more glamorous than they really were.

The film is brief 60 minutes, not much longer than the documentaries it resembles and tells its story is a meandering but not uninteresting manner. The film film wanders a bit simply because the film is telling two singular stories, that of the outlaws and that of the law, two tales that don't come together until the final fatal shoot out. The film's very strong anti-criminal pro-law stand point can get to be a bit too much but because of the films brief running time it never overwhelms the narrative.

On the plus side is the fact that we get to hear from surviving witnesses to the events and we get to see some of the guns and other items used and places in which the events really took place. This was made at the right time to connect it to the events just thirty years earlier.

The film is far from perfect but its enjoyable in the same sort of way that many History Channel documentaries are enjoyable when you happen to come upon them. If you should come upon it you could do worse than watch this for an hour. Certainly it would be an interesting co-bill with the Beatty film.

I would also think that its a sterling argument for a big screen version of the life of Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, since in briefly recounting his life one gets the sense of a great story that needs to be told.