Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Bonnie & Clyde

Shortly after reading the most recent TOGOM rewrite, I ran across this article, about the real, historical Bonnie & Clyde . I found it very interesting, so I thought I'd share.

Thanks, Pam. It recaps much of what I already knew about Barrow and Parker, neither of whom were as pretty as Beatty and Dunaway. Even if Bonnie never actually shot anyone, she was complicit in a number of murders and would have faced hard time, if not the hangman's noose, had she been captured alive.

This last paragraph really caught my attention. Frank Hamer was the cop who set up the shooting.

I can't tell if the author thinks Hamer was a good cop or a psycho killer with a badge or something in between. I don't know much about Hamer, partly because of his reticence and insistence that he was just doing his job, but I think I would have respected him.

I don't know that I would have liked him. And I doubt he would have cared either way.

I like much of what this guy says, although I doubt that Barrow would have been much of a leader in the vein of Audie Murphy. Barrow had too much disdain for authority to be any kind of leader, and I don't think that anyone would have followed him into German infantry fire. I do, however, think he would have enjoyed shooting German soldiers, assuming that he could have survived boot camp. Dude was whack.

Very interesting article. Thanks for the link!

I did a little research on Bonnie and Clyde when I wrote "Love Survives". Theirs is a very interesting story. It is certainly easy for us to make judgements based on the law and culture of 2010, but it wasn't 2010 then, LOL. Our law school does a historical trial every year of a historical event (crime) that was never brought to trial and "tries" the case. In 2008 they tried Missouri governor Thomas Crittendon for the murder of Jesse James. Like the killing of Bonnie and Clyde, many felt it was justified. But was it legal?
I keep suggesting that they try Superman as an illegal alien. It's not really historical, but it would be an interesting trial. May Dean would come be Superman! LOL

A few comments here...

I won't pass any sort of judgement on the police officer's willingness to kill Bonnie and Clyde in order to stop them, but I do, indeed, shudder at the sheer number of bullets that he fired into the bodies of Ms. Parker and Mr. Barrow. It wasn't as if they were Osama bin Ladin and Mullah Omar trying to escape.

Stephen Hunter, who wrote the article about Bonnie and Clyde, said this about the famous movie that was made about them:

It seems to me that Stephen Hunter is saying that the real Bonnie and Clyde were not as handsome and charming as Dunaway and Beatty. Well, I should think not. Hollywood stars do tend to be more attractive than people in general, after all. Personally I believe that if a flying good samaritan had existed for real, chances are that he wouldn't have looked like Dean Cain.

Rkn said:

Well, who am I to argue? Except that I read just recently in a leftist magazine of some kind that most Americans weren't very angry at high-profile bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde. Most Americans felt, according to this magazine, that American bankers and others who had legally been playing fast and loose with people's life savings had wreaked a lot more financial havoc than a few bank robbers. I have no idea if Americans in general were really so forgiving of people like Bonnie and Clyde or if the suggestion that they were is nothing but leftist propaganda, but I like the comparison between the bankers and the bank robbers, nevertheless.

Recently there was some sort of documentary about Al Capone and people like him on Swedish public service radio. I didn't listen to the documentary, but apparently it claimed that people like Al Capone (and presumably Bonnie and Clyde) spent inordinate amounts of money on their attire in order to look elegant and impressive. But because they splurged on their clothing they had very little money left to pay for their living arrangements, and many of them stayed in very poor lodgings or even slept in their cars! Again I don't know if this is true, but again I like this little tidbit!

Ann