Back in 1967, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty made a big-screen splash in “Bonnie & Clyde,” Arthur Penn’s cinematic take on Bonnie Parker (Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Beatty), the 20something folklore outlaws — turned cold-blooded killers — who met a grisly end in a 1934 ambush (memorably choreographed by Penn in mega-blood-splattered slow-motion).
The movie, which garnered multiple Oscar nominations (Beatty, Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Michael J. Pollard, Penn) — and snared an Oscar for co-star Estelle Parsons — has stood the test of time.
But with the 80th anniversary of the couple’s death quickly approaching, History felt the need to retell their tale over two nights, four hours and three networks — too much fuss over what could have aired on one network in one night in two hours.
That being said, there’s nothing inherently objectionable about “Bonnie and Clyde: Dead and Alive,” which traces the duo (Holliday Grainger and Emile Hirsch) from their first meeting — at Bonnie’s wedding to another man — to their deaths at the hand of legendary Texas ranger Frank Hamer (a terrific William Hurt), coaxed out of retirement to hunt the pair down and kill them.
And if you’ve never seen the 1967 movie — or don’t know anything about either Texas-born killer — you’ll learn via Joe Bateer and John Rice’s script that Clyde, who survived a near-death experience as a child, had what his grandmother called “second sight,” which manifested itself in uncanny instincts and premonitions of his own bloody demise. He also played a mean saxophone (who knew?) and idolized his older brother, Marvin “Buck” Barrow (Lane Garrison), who takes Clyde out on his first crime. (They heist a safe, Buck gets caught and sent to prison and Clyde escapes the law’s clutches — for now).
Bonnie, meanwhile, harbored Hollywood ambitions and an unquenchable thirst for recognition fed by her mother (played by Holly Hunter). She even went so far as to mail several glamour shots to Columbia Pictures (which were returned, along with a “thanks but no thanks” letter).
It’s Bonnie’s ambition, in fact, that propels the duo into a life of crime — petty at first, murderous after a spell — as she falls in love, not so much with Clyde, but with the idea of becoming a ’30s-era celebrity and seeing the names “Bonnie and Clyde” splashed across lurid newspaper headlines as their wild crime spree unfolds. Jealous of not being included in movie house newsreels — a la their murderous colleague Pretty Boy Floyd — the pair even pose for (those now-infamous) photos in front of their car, a jaunty, beret-wearing Bonnie with cigar in mouth, a proud Clyde with his collection of rifles.
Sunday night’s two-hour opener plods along at a steady, unspectacular pace, establishing Bonnie and Clyde’s back stories (her unfulfilled show-biz ambitions, his spiral into petty crime) and ends with the first person killed during one of their robberies (in 1932). There are some artsy shots underscoring Clyde’s premonitions and Bonnie’s obsession with a music-box ballerina, but they’re throwaways at best and lend absolutely nothing to the saga.
The pace picks up rapidly in Monday night’s Part 2, as Bonnie’s lust for the limelight veers out of control drives the pair’s now-murderous spree, which include a father of three — on Christmas Day and in front of his wife and kids, no less — but several police officers gunned down in cold blood.
While a quietly enraged Hamer vows to bring the pair to deathly justice, Clyde starts to awaken to the fact that he’s only a means to Bonnie’s end, and that she can’t really love anyone more than she loves herself. “I’m just a footnote in the story of you,” he tells Bonnie, likening her thirst for spilled blood to the ink in newspaper headlines. She doesn’t disagree.
The performances here are fine. Hirsch, as was Beatty before him, is several years older than was the real Clyde Barrow, but his boyish looks are an asset in personifying Clyde’s gee-whiz persona mixed with an evil disregard for human life — he’s an outwardly nice guy hiding a heart of darkness.
Grainger is the stronger of the two characters, effectively portraying Bonnie’s girlish vanity (she was only 19 when she met Clyde) and her ceaseless ambition. Hurt, who’s 63 now, has morphed into a craggy, reliable character actor (he was excellent in the recent Science Channel movie, “The Challenger Disaster”), quietly chewing scenery as Hamer hunts his elusive prey.