Bonnie & Clyde: The True Story

While this movie portrayed several events that were not included in the 1967 movie "Bonnie and Clyde," calling it the "True Story" is a mis-statement. As is often necessary in the confines of a two hour TV movie, characters and events are combined for dramatic purposes. I think the way Bonnie and Clyde are portrayed in this movie is more appropriate than the glamour that Beatty and Dunaway gave these killers in 1967. Blanch Barrow is definitely portrayed in a different light. The scenes where Clyde and W.D. Jones brutally kill two law enforcement officers at a dance in OK as well as the car accident that left Bonnie near death with two severely burned legs (two true events) seem conspicuously absent from the 1967 version after seeing this one. The method in which Bonnie and Clyde are executed is more accurate in this picture as, unlike the original, they never stopped their car or got out when it was hit with the hail of bullets. This movie also provides a bit better ending than the 1967 version. Not a great movie, but it is what one would expect from an early 90s TV movie. Worth watching once but not exactly the "True Story" as the title suggests.

Released to TV in 1992, "Bonnie and Clyde: The True Story" stars Tracey Needham and Dana Ashbrook in the titular roles chronicling the criminal exploits of the duo and their equally simpleton associates from 1930-1934. Their crime spree comprised the last two years before their sudden executions. Billy Morrissette plays Clyde's main accomplice W.D. Jones while Michael Bowen & Michelle Joyner play Buck & Blanche, Clyde's brother and sister-in-law. Betty Buckley and Louanne Stephens are also on hand as the mothers of the duo with Doug Savant as the sheriff who tracks 'em down.

While this version is more accurate than the 1967 film with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, it lacks the gloss and style of that more popular rendition. Furthermore, it still deviates from the facts in some ways. Characters and events are combined due to the short runtime. For instance, W. D. Jones and Henry Methvin are combined into the character played by Morrissette, W.D., obviously to limit the size of the gang to five for dramatic purposes. While the way Bonnie and Clyde are portrayed in this version is more appropriate than the glamor of Beatty and Dunaway, particularly their ages, the actors are still way too tall for the parts. Bonnie was barely 5' feet tall and Clyde was only 5'6". In the movie Bonnie (Needham) is 5'11" and Clyde (Ashbrook) is 6'. In addition, Clyde walked with a limp because he needlessly cut off his big toe in prison and seriously injured the other one to get out of hard labor. I say needless because he was released early a mere week later. The fact that Barrow was willing to mutilate his body to avoid labor (or to be transferred to another facility, whatever the case) shows how desperate, impulsive and dimwitted he was as a person. Also, Bonnie never fully recovered from her severe leg wounds after being trapped in a burning vehicle. She either had to be carried or walked with a limp until her death.

Speaking of which, this version scores points for depicting important events that were conspicuously omitted from the 1967 movie, such as the stoo-pid accident that resulted in Bonnie's injury and the brutal shooting of two law enforcement officers by Clyde and W.D. at a dance in Oklahoma. Many other events are accurate, like the ending of Bonnie's relationship with her husband, Roy Thornton, whom she actually never officially divorced; the initial meeting of Bonnie and Clyde in 1930 at Clarence Clay's house and the sparks thereof; Clyde's victimization in prison (where he used a lead pipe to crush the skull of his molester, which was Clyde's first killing, albeit justified); and the execution of Bonnie & Clyde and the aftermath.

With a historical TV movie like this, I ask myself: Do the script and the actors bring me into the world of the characters? While the film starts out slow to establish the main players, the answer is a resounding yes. Although Needham and Clyde are way too tall for the roles and Needham in particular lacks the semi-sinister look of Bonnie, they deliver the goods. Not to mention, Billy Morrissette's outstanding performance as W.D., who was merely 16 during the crime spree.

The movie runs 93 minutes and was shot entirely in Texas.

GRADE: B+

This is one of those movies that you happen across when you're channel surfing on a Saturday afternoon, and you get drawn into it and end up watching the whole thing. I thought that it was well acted and it really made me feel for the characters. Though it's a bit slow moving, focusing more on the relationships between Bonnie and Clyde and their family members, it never got boring. We don't really see too much of all the robberies that they were so legendary for, and instead most of the shootouts take place when they're ambushed by the police. I thought Tracey Needham, who played Bonnie, really did a good job with her character. Going from a nice country girl to a cold-blooded killer is a challenging thing to portray, and I enjoyed the subtlety she brought to the role.

Overall, an above average effort, especially considering it was a made for TV movie.

Saw it on pay-channel decades ago, only vaguely remember. The 7 is given because I do remember having liked it when I saw it back then. Been trying to find it on DVD, but my search was hindered, kept bumping against that History Channel documentary of (almost) the same name. That problem here has now been resolved after I brought it to IMDb's attention. Unfortunately, the movie itself remains something I cannot find through a local importer. And there isn't even a trailer to download. All that I really remember, is what vultures the onlookers became when Bonnie's dead body was at their disposal.

Rrsearch on those two real-life characters reveal that they were two totally unlikely people to have earned such fame. What total losers grabbed the public's imagination, fueled by a desire simply to sell newspapers!

Bonnie and Clyde's "True Story" has never been put on film, and there are dramatic variations in the accounts that have been published in book form.

While it is no easier to overlook 1990's hairstyles and dresses on 1930's characters in this movie than it was to overlook 1960's hairstyles on them in the 1967 movie "Bonnie & Clyde" (and I'll never understand WHY, it's not like one can't easily determine appropriate clothing and hairstyles for the 1930's, a decade well captured on film at the time!), the makers of this TV drama did at least get actors who were closer to the correct age. Bonnie and Clyde were both quite young, only in their early twenties when they met their death. These actors are, as usual, the wrong physical type, much too tall, as both Bonnie and Clyde were inordinately short, thin, small boned, little people.

The "truth" in the title is played fast and loose here. While they did include the fact that Bonnie was badly burned in a car accident, they were incorrect in depicting her complete recovery, she walked with a limp from that point on. The manner in which Buck and Blanche joined Bonnie and Clyde is inaccurately depicted in this film, and again the persons of W. D. Jones and Henry Methvin are combined into one character for no discernible reason (if your audience can't keep track of six characters, they can't keep track of five either). It would be far more interesting to depict the real story, W.D. apprehended and squealing like a stuck pig on Clyde, as Clyde had instructed him to do in the event of his capture.

Native Texan Betty Buckley is a pleasure to watch, as always, and most of the other actors do pretty well with the material they are given, but the viewer should know that this "true story" of Bonnie and Clyde is no more true to actual events than any of the previous poorly handled efforts.