Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow became notorious outlaws during the early thirties, travelling around a country ravaged by the depression. They were colourful and outrageous and captured the public imagination at a time when people were desperate for escapist glamour. Clyde was an ex-convict, who hooked up with restless waitress Bonnie in Texas. The pair wanted to be famous, just like the gangsters they had read about in the papers, and they soon hired a getaway driver, C.W.Moss. Soon, banks were being robbed and people were getting killed. The threesome became a quintet when they were joined by Clyde's brother Buck along with his wife, Blanche. Calling themselves "The Barrow Gang", they soon became famous, just as they always wished. The film follows the true story quite closely, structuring the film around significant incidents in the career of the outlaws. It begins in a light-hearted manner, with Clyde portrayed as a charming rogue and Bonnie as a calculating coquette who always gets her way. But the film quickly reveals the truth behind the legend, as soon as the first person gets killed. In this film, death is nasty,brutish and undignified. Myths about people who fall down instantly dead when a shot is fired, the ones peddled by seventy years of Hollywood movies, are shattered without ceremony. As more and more people die, we begin to realise that the retribution exacted on Bonnie and Clyde by the state, if they are caught, is going to be severe.

What makes Arthur Penn's film so effective is that it is not moralistic. We are presented with what Bonnie and Clyde do, but we are not told how to feel about it. Some people found this disturbing, having to accept that they were effectively cheering on the criminals, but Penn is fully aware of this feeling. In fact he exploits it, especially in the legendary final scene. The outlaws appear to be charming and funny, but they are also killers - the viewer is left to judge for himself the moral attitude he takes towards them. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are perfectly cast as the eponymous anti-heroes, and Beatty's slightly reserved quality is well used, making us see that there is something more to Clyde than he is intially willing to reveal. Dunaway is note-perfect, and the scene with her mother is a particularly good example of her brilliant technique. The supporting cast also work very hard. Estelle Parsons, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Blanche, is excellent at playing one of the most exasperating characters ever to feature in a film. Gene Hackman, in his first major film role at the age of 36, is just right as the loudmouthed Buck and Michael J. Pollard, playing C.W. has a fine quality of weirdness which he continued to exploit for the next twenty five years.

Arthur Penn controls the tone and mood of the film with great precision, often mixing shocking violence with an unnerving edge of black comedy. Take for example the funny but unnerving scene in which Gene Wilder's neurotic is kidnapped. Penn is not afraid to darken the tone towards the end, when a palpable atmosphere of fear begins to dominate. Burnet Guffey provides some fine cinematography and the editing, by Dede Allen, is exceptional. The banjo music which accompanies the film has lost its freshness, but is highly appropriate to the time and place. What is most striking about the film is that the violence, while relatively restrained by modern standards, still has undeniable impact, especially in the stunningly effective final scene. The look of the film was also very popular, sparking a short-lived fashion craze and counterpointing the stylish look of the outlaws with the violent actions that they perform.

This is clearly one of the most influential films ever made but you wouldn't guess that from Warners' treatment of it on DVD. The transfer is satisfactory but the presentation and supplementary materials are poor. The picture is really very good for a relatively old film, framed at 1.85:1 and anamorphically enhanced. Generally there is a clear, clean image without too much artifacting - although this is variable - and the grain occures mostly in some of the softer focus scenes. The mono soundtrack is adequate, but uninspiring.

As for the extras, which we are told to press our "menu" button to access, well there aren't any, unless you count some "production notes" and "cast and crew biographies" which are brief and largely uninteresting. Some of the dates on the filmographies looked a bit odd. We don't even get the trailer, which is on the region 1 release. As for the menu, we're talking about a blue stencil with the Warner logo on it and the name of the film in the bottom right hand corner. It's just not good enough, especially when you consider the special edition treatment that Warners give to nonsense such as Wild Wild West. Arthur Penn is alive and well and very eloquent, so surely a commentary wouldn't have been all that difficult to provide.

Bonnie and Clyde is still an entertaining and provocative film which, possibly due to the period setting, hasn't dated as badly as other notable films of the late sixties. I certainly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it and this DVD offers good picture quality and reasonable sound. It's just frustrating that the numerous admirers of the film, have been shortchanged in terms of supplementary materials.

Mike Sutton