Tyler Sorensen

Professor Adah

Film 388

December, 2009

Gun Crazy: The Forerunner to Bonnie and Clyde

The broad-ranging topic of American film would not need to be studied at length to

conclude that much has already been written about Bonnie and Clyde in the context of cinema

academia. Arriving at a pivotal point in the breakdown of the Motion Picture Production Code in

1967, Bonnie and Clyde's explicit depictions of violence and sexuality were instrumental in the

wide scheme of Hollywood history. Indeed, over four decades later, one would still be hard-

pressed to not trace a contemporary film's influences back to Arthur Penn's masterpiece.

However, although Bonnie and Clyde's reputation is well-deserved, it was not the first motion

picture feature to a bank-robbing couple. Much of Penn's film is indebted to an earlier studio

creation – 1950's Gun Crazy by Joseph H. Lewis. With their mutual genre conventions,

stylistically isolated scenes, and protagonist martyrdom, Bonnie and Clyde and Gun Crazy are

irrefutably linked.

It should come as no surprise that the basic plot of Gun Crazy (written by MacKinlay

Kantor and blacklisted Dalton Trumbo) was, albeit loosely, based on the lives of the real Bonnie

Parker and Clyde Barrow. Both of Lewis' and Penn's respective films prominently feature a

seduction involving a gun. In the former, after a childhood riddled with delinquency, empathetic

protagonist, Bart Tare (John Dall), finds himself escaping mundane civilian life at a local

carnival. It's there that Bart is enamored with the sideshow performance of a lady sharpshooter

named Annie (Peggy Cummins). He leans forward, visually aroused, as Annie swivels her hips
from side to side and continues to hit every target, even upside down and between her legs. A

playful challenge to a competition seals their new relationship, and their fate.

A similar sequence occurs in Bonnie and Clyde, although the roles are notably reversed.

In this story, it is primarily the man who seduces the woman. After catching him attempting to

steal her family's automobile, Bonnie (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde (Warren Beatty) connect

almost immediately on an idle stroll through town. Before long, Clyde divulges that he served a

prison sentence for armed robbery – a definite thrill to the bored Bonnie, who begins to liken her

glass cola bottle to that of a phallus. When Bonnie temporarily doubts his claim, Clyde reveals

his handgun and allows her to touch it. The subsequent action and reaction are nothing short of

suggestive. It's only after Bonnie challenges Clyde's “gumption to use it,” and his success, that

the lovers are on a first name basis. Their fate is also sealed.

Of course, both of these couples are doomed from the beginning. From the moment they

first kiss, they are thrown into a lifestyle ruled by redundancy by necessity. They must embark on

a one-way road of love, murder, and inescapably – death. Their only available means to fending

off their own eventual death is a constant circling until they drop through the end of the funnel.

From the introduction of the characters to their inevitable demise, Bonnie and Clyde follows the

major genre standards already established in Gun Crazy.

Well before Joseph H. Lewis' film was released, continuity editing was the predominant

style of editing in American narrative cinema. Editing had seen decades of refinement since its

development in the late 19th century. By the first half of the following century, moviegoers were

accustomed to establishing shots, the 180 degree rule, the eyeline match, the match on action, the

ellipsis, diegetic sound, and everything else that made up spatial and temporal continuity, even if

they were not consciously aware of them. Perhaps the most unexpected similarity between Gun
Crazy and Bonnie and Clyde is the mutual utilization of an isolated sequence that temporarily

disregards narrative continuity.

In Gun Crazy, the bank heist is arguably the most memorable moment in the entire film.

The sequence begins from the back of the getaway car as Bart nervously feeds Annie directions

as she helms the steering wheel. Tension increases when the couple discover that the streets are

crowded and the availability of parking is slim. At last, Bart points out a car pulling out and they

park on the corner next to the bank. We (i.e. the audience) continue to watch Annie fidget in the

driver's seat. The suspense intensifies as Annie is forced out of the car to distract an idle police

officer. Finally, the alarm rings and Bart charges out of the bank entrance. Annie pistol whips the

policeman and follows Bart into the car. Much like the latter Bonnie and Clyde, an argument

ensues about the effectiveness of the driver. This subsides however as Annie looks back with

lustful eyes: no one is following them.

While the action is relatively straight-forward, it is the stylistic choices on the part of

Joseph H. Lewis that make this scene isolated from the rest of the film. The most perceptible and

yet stunning variation is that the entire sequence is shot in one, long take. Clocking in at three

minutes and thirty-one seconds, the bank heist occurs in real time from one very inhibiting (in

terms of movement) camera position. The perspective constrains the audience into a subjective,

backseat accomplice to the couple, forced to empathize with their plight.

In addition, Lewis employed a number of tactics to heighten the realism. Dall and

Cummins were greatly encouraged to improvise most of their dialogue, which led to genuinely

overlapped lines in the final film. Unlike many of the other set pieces in Gun Crazy, the bank

heist was shot on location in Montrose, California, without the usual assistance of rear

projection. Only the bank and primary actors were aware of the film shoot. The scene was
reportedly so authentic, that some civilians really believed that they had witnessed a robbery.

The extended action, on-location shooting, and improvisation add up to a lean,

documentary-like, artistic style reminiscent of the New Wave aesthetic that would have a

profound impact on Bonnie and Clyde. Lewis' stylistic break in style affirms the crime as an

isolated event. The difference between cinematic time and real time is effectively blurred.

In Bonnie and Clyde, the filmic equivalent occurs when Bonnie is reunited with her

mother. Again, the action itself is not unexpected. Bonnie is introduced to the newest addition to

the family since she first left with Clyde, the Parkers reminisce over a photo album, Clyde and

Bonnie pose for mock photos of their capture, and a picnic is shared. It is here that Clyde utters

an encapsulating line of the genre: “At this point, we ain't headed to nowhere. We just running

from.”

What makes this particular sequence so remarkable in the context of the film, is the

manner in which it was shot. Surprisingly, the visual and auditory aesthetic of the scene is

detailed in David Newman and Robert Benton's preliminary story treatment for Bonnie and

Clyde. They write: “There are a lot of people gather around but the sound is an indistinct mixture

of talk, laughing, etc. The visual quality of the image is like the end of Wild Strawberries – a

magic, isolated landscape seen from a distance, lit by bright sun.” Newman and Benton's

treatment was fully realized by director of photography, Burnett Guffey, who would eventually

win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work in Bonnie and Clyde.

If the Parker family reunion could be captured in one word, “dreamlike” might be the

most appropriate. The sequence begins with an extended crossfade into a neutral no-man's-land

of sand dunes and constant wind – not the most ideal location for a family outing. Immediately

striking is the soft filter applied to all of the nearly one-hundred individual shots. Director Penn
reportedly told Guffey that he preferred the family reunion to have “the air of an old photograph

that's just beginning to turn.” Guffey returned with a piece of screen door custom-fitted to the

camera lens to convey a startling surreality to the sequence.

The other stylistic shift in the Parker reunion scene manifests in an isolated usage of slow

motion. In the forty-fourth shot, a boy playfully rolls down a hill into Bonnie's arms, before

obliviously kicking up sand in her face. The shot is vital because it foreshadows Penn's more

dramatic use of slow motion in the film's finale.

Together with the fragmented montage of dialogue, the foggy filters and use of slow

motion contribute to a conversely dark and solitary event considering the scene is of a family

reunion out in the sun. The stylistic shift illustrates Bonnie's ever-increasing distance between

her life on the road and her old life of stability. After her reunion, Bonnie will come to realize a

disheartening truth. She really cannot go home again, no matter how discontented she is with life

on the road.

Lastly comes the inevitable martyrdom for our respective protagonists. Following the

genre conventions outlined earlier, there is no alternative. Violence and eroticism end ultimately,

in death. To be expected, the final sequences in both Gun Crazy and Bonnie and Clyde arrive

with several similarities.

In Gun Crazy, Bart and Annie have inadvertently backed themselves into a corner.

They're trapped in a marsh obscured by heavy fog. Policemen slowly advance from unknown

sides. When Annie acknowledges that it might be the end (“We're in real trouble this time”), Bart

upholds his mad love. “No matter what happens, I wouldn't have it any other way,” he says.

When Annie threatens to kill one of the approaching police officers however, Bart has no choice.

He shoots her to save a life, but his firing of the first shot gets himself killed as well. The lovers
die in a nestling position.

As a low budget “B” picture, the final sequence in Gun Crazy employs many long takes

frequently over ten seconds. Cinematographer Russell Harlan maintained a very subjective

camera perspective for the last scene. The vast majority of the shots are extreme close-ups split

up between Dall and Cummins. When the unseen police officers bark, “You're not a killer, Bart,”

the camera dollies forward to mere feet of his face, mimicking the figurative motion of a sudden

realization.

To heighten the subjectivity, Joseph H. Lewis never reveals the perspective of the

oncoming police officers. The audience, like the trapped couple, only hears their disembodied

voices in the mist. When their voices are heard, the only visual association we receive are out-of-

focus tall grass in the foreground and an endless, hazy void in curious sharp focus in the

background. Bart and Annie's point-of-view is frequently featured to reiterate their dim and

hopeless plight.

The iconic finale of Bonnie and Clyde is very much a conscious reaction to the ending of

Gun Crazy. In fact, on a visit to New York, François Truffaut read the treatment to Bonnie and

Clyde and invited the writers to a screening of Gun Crazy. While Newman and Benton indeed

applied many of the conventions found in Lewis' film to their following drafts, the ending, it was

decided, was to be much more abrupt than they originally intended.

In the last quarter of Bonnie and Clyde, after Clyde has overcome his sexual impotency,

Bonnie asks him a question reminiscent of the same one that Bart answers in Gun Crazy. “What

would you do,” she asks him. “If some miracle happened and we could walk out of here

tomorrow morning clean, with no record?” Clyde's answer is similar: he would still choose to

rob banks. Roughly ten minutes later (in cinematic time), they meet their death.
 The last sequence in Bonnie and Clyde has been examined nearly to the point of tedium,

but not unjustly so. Dede Allen, the editor, deserves much of the credit for the success of the final

ambush. The scene begins conventionally with adequate coverage of the outlaw couple driving

down the road. When the father of C.W. Moss flags them down with a phony flat tire, Clyde gets

out to help. Before more than the bare essentials can be said, Allen quickly cuts to restless birds

emerging from the nearby brush. Two-second shots of the birds ascending into the air are cut

between one-second reactions from Clyde, Moss, and Bonnie. This jarring shift briefly prepares

the audience for the ensuing mayhem.

At the forty-sixth shot, Clyde ducks down and makes his final glance at Bonnie. Although

Bonnie's reaction shot lasts for less than a second, the facial expression is telling. They've come

to the end of the road and they're about to die. The following thirty cuts are a blistering sensory

attack of candid violence. Unlike the slow meandering quality of earlier scenes, editor Allen

presents an extended, visceral rush with some selected shots that last only a fraction of a second.

Evocative of the previous reunion sequence, slow motion is also used to effectively show Clyde's

newly lifeless body tumble in momentum. Once the shooting subsides, the journey is over.

In the broad-ranging publications of cinema academia, much has already been said about

Bonnie and Clyde, especially of the iconic final scene. Its explicit depictions of violence and

sexuality were instrumental in the wide scheme of Hollywood history. The numbers of

contemporary films that Arthur Penn's work continues to influence are countless. However,

although Bonnie and Clyde's reputation is well-deserved, it was not the first motion picture

The broad-ranging topic of American film would not need to be studied at length to

conclude that much has already been written about Bonnie and Clyde in the context of cinema

academia. Arriving at a pivotal point in the breakdown of the Motion Picture Production Code in
1967, Bonnie and Clyde's explicit depictions of violence and sexuality were instrumental in the

wide scheme of Hollywood history. Indeed, over four decades later, one would still be hard-

pressed to not trace a contemporary film's influences back to Arthur Penn's masterpiece.

However, although Bonnie and Clyde's reputation is well-earned, it was not the first motion

picture to feature a bank-robbing couple. Much of Penn's film is indebted to an earlier studio

creation – 1950's Gun Crazy by Joseph H. Lewis. Their mutual genre conventions, stylistically

isolated scenes, and protagonist martyrdom irrefutably link Bonnie and Clyde and Gun Crazy

together. With so much critical attention focused on its cinematic descendant, Lewis' film

deserves further consideration.

 Bibliography

Bernstein, Matthew. “Perfecting the New Gangster: Writing Bonnie and Clyde.” Film

Quarterly. 53:4 (2000): 16-31.

Bonnie and Clyde. Dir. Arthur Penn. Writ. David Newman and Robert Benton. Perf. Warren

Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Warner Bros., 1967. DVD.

Creekmur, Corey K. “On The Run And On The Road: Fame and the Outlaw Couple in American

Cinema.” The Road Movie Book. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.

Gun Crazy. Dir. Joseph H. Lewis. Writ. MacKinlay Kantor and Dalton Trumbo. Perf. Peggy

Cummins and John Dall. United Artists, 1950. DVD.

Laderman, David. Driving Visions: Exploring The Road Movie. 1st ed. Austin: University of

Texas, 2002. Print.

Leong, Ian, Mike Sell, and Kelly Thomas. “Mad Love, Mobile Homes, And Dysfunctional

Dicks: On the Road with Bonnie and Clyde” The Road Movie Book. New York:

Routledge, 1997. Print.

Penn, Arthur. "Transcript: A Pinewood Dialogue With Arthur Penn." Interview by David

Schwartz. Museum of the Moving Image 2008: 1-11. Print.

Silva, Arturo. “Gun Crazy: Cinematic Amour Fou.” Film Criticism. 33:1 (2008): 1-24.