The legendary director Larry Buchanan was behind the documentary The Other Side Of Bonnie & Clyde, and depicts the real life figures with the equal amount of taste, budget, and professionalism he later used in his biopics of Marilyn Monroe, Howard Hughes, and Jimi Hendrix.Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.
#1 by RogerBW on May 1, 2022 - 2:26 pm
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I think that a biopic that has only one thing to say, whether that’s “this person was a saint” or “this person was a devil”, is likely to be boring simply because it doesn’t take 90+ minutes to say that. If the subject is still alive, or has living relatives who have control of significant source material, the filmmakers will probably have to promise them some level of editorial oversight, so the film usually comes out as a whitewash.
The portrayal of Frank Hamer in the 1967 film is certainly very far from the truth, and Gladys and Frank Jr (widow and son) sued Warner for defamation (they got a settlement in 1971), so that may explain why they were happy to cooperate with Buchanan – but that doesn’t really have anything to say about how good or bad Bonnie and Clyde were.
Nobody’s made a film about Hamer vs the Klan, or Hamer vs the bankers’ murder-for-hire ring…