Bonnie and Clyde

When BONNIE AND CLYDE first premiered, many condemned it as vile, gory, and positively toxic. One reviewer wrote a scathing negative review -- then reconsidered, then ran another review retracting his original opinion and giving the movie big thumbs-up. Clearly this was a film like Natural Born Killers, that divided opinion leaders in its era, but it wound up being a hit with audiences and film historians. Today families can watch it uncut in their own living room -- something that might have horrified folks in 1967. Some violence is still shocking (especially the gruesome ending), but much bloodier movies have come out of Hollywood since.

Old-school Hollywood censorship used to dictate that lawbreakers were always punished in the end. While that certainly holds true here, Bonnie and Clyde subverted the studio code by making the killer couple especially appealing and likeable protagonists, more so than the police who pursue them. The movie doesn't go out of its way to condemn the bank robbers and their deeds, which seems in some ways a natural reaction to the grim economic conditions of dust-bowl America (though at one point Clyde discovers a bank he wants to rob has gone broke too). This "anti-establishment" notion struck a chord with the 1960s Vietnam War-era audiences, who had their own reasons for learning to mistrust the government, military, and police.