Arthur Penn | Bouquets & Brickbats

04/05/25

Dominion Cinema, Edinburgh

Jesse James. Billy the Kid. Butch Cassidy.

America has long had an infatuation with the myth of the outlaw and Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are simply more recent examples of the phenomenon. They carried out their crimes – and met with a deadly reckoning for their transgressions – in the early nineteen-thirties at the height of the Great Depression. The two young criminals were deified in their own lifetimes, largely due to the poems that Bonnie wrote about their exploits and, after their deaths, by several images that were found on a camera that belonged to them. But they had to wait until 1967 to be fully rediscovered, when Arthur Penn’s visceral film about the two criminals brought them back to the attention of young audiences around the world.

Filmed in London’s West End in January 2022 to a sold-out crowd all wearing face masks (a reminder that we had just come through a grim time in our own history), this assured musical offers an intelligent reassessment of Bonnie and Clyde’s familiar story. It begins at the end of their journey with a grim account of the number of bullets that were fired at them in their final moments (130, if you’re interested), before backtracking briefly to their respective childhoods. Young Bonnie (Bea Ward) is already starstruck, singing a song about her favourite movie star, Clara Bow, who she longs to emulate. Young Clyde (Albert Atack) despairs of his family’s hardscrabble existence and is making putative plans for an escape that only a generous infusion of cash can facilitate.

Pretty soon they’ve grown up. Bonnie (Frances Mayli McCann) is working as a waitress when she first encounters the smooth-talking Clyde (Jeremy Jordan). He’s recently absconded from prison but still finds time in his frantic schedule for a little romance. There’s an instant attraction between them, and almost from the word ‘go’, they are inseparable. Clyde’s older brother, Buck (George McGuire), welcomes Clyde’s latest sweetheart, but Buck’s God-fearing wife, Blanche (Natalie McQueen), isn’t quite so entranced by her – and makes her feelings clear.

However, it’s only a matter of time before Buck and Blanche are drawn in to the couple’s irresistible orbit and, as The Barrow Gang graduates from robbing general stores to robbing banks, retribution is patiently biding its time…

Directed by Nick Winston with book by Ivan Menchell and songs by Frank Wildhorn and Don Black, Bonnie and Clyde: The Musical is a powerful retelling of this familiar tale, the songs ranging from blues-infused upbeat thumpers to soulful ballads. From time to time, ‘The Preacher’ (Trevor Dion Nicholas) strides on to deliver some gospel-soaked anthems, clinically parting his congregation from their hard-earned cash in exchange for excerpts from the Bible. The sense of desperation looms large. A scene where the gang stage a bank robbery only to discover that the vaults are completely empty is a particular eye-opener. This is a point in history when people are compelled to take desperate measures.

The performances are uniformly strong. Jordan captures Clyde’s unflagging determination to better himself and his steadily-mounting realisation that he is doomed, while Mayli McCann excels as a woman so under her partner’s spell that she is helpless to resist the inevitable slide towards her own destruction. McQueen offers a deliciously-funny performance as the disapproving Blanche, somehow managing to make every line she utters a searing condemnation.

I find myself wondering how Winston will attempt to recreate the carnage of the duo’s final moments, but happily, he doesn’t even try, preferring to leave them at an intimate moment shortly before they set off on their final journey. And on reflection, that seems the wisest approach.

We all know what happened to Bonnie and Clyde – and the essence of these two legendary figures is not how they died but how they lived.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

31/01/20

In one scene in Queen & Slim, a character refers to the two leads as ‘the black Bonnie and Clyde’ – and it’s true that the spirit of Arthur Penn’s notorious 1967 crime drama hangs inescapably over this production. However, it shouldn’t be overlooked that, while Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were small time opportunist crooks whose legend outgrew them, Angela Johnson (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Ernest Hinds (Daniel Kaluuya) are just two young black people in the wrong place at the wrong time. As for that odd title, we don’t even learn the characters’ real names until the film’s conclusion. Quite how they earn their titular monikers is anybody’s guess, but I’ll go with it for simplicity’s sake.

When we first encounter Queen and Slim, they are in Cleveland, Ohio, and struggling through an awkward first date, arranged via Tinder. She is a lawyer, miserable after losing a court case, and seeking solace from human company. He is just a happy-go-lucky guy, hoping for a bit of love action and refusing to complain when the scrambled eggs he’s ordered are delivered fried. As a couple, they aren’t exactly hitting it off, so they get into Slim’s car and head for Queen’s apartment, where Slim is clearly still hoping that things might develop further.

But the situation goes catastrophically awry when they are pulled over for a minor traffic violation and a racist white cop pulls a gun on them. In the ensuing confusion, Queen is grazed by a bullet and, in self-defence, Slim shoots the officer dead.

Slim is all for calling the cops and facing the music, but Queen assures him that no black man can ever hope for a fair trial in such a situation. She ought to know; this is her area of expertise. She insists that they get in the car and drive South to New Orleans. They even discuss the possibility of crossing the water to Cuba.

And so a long Southbound odyssey begins. The couple encounter various characters along the way, and there’s a notable stopover with Queen’s Uncle Earl (Bokeem Woodbine), a gold-adorned pimp who owes Queen a major favour. Wherever they go, they realise that people are recognising them despite the fact that they have taken steps to radically change their appearances. It transpires that footage from the dead cop’s dashboard cam has somehow found its way onto social media and gone viral. Support for the fugitives begins to grow across America. Meanwhile, the police are attempting to track them down and have even offered a substantial reward for information leading to their arrest.

This is mostly an entertaining road trip with a powerful central message about inequality. Both Turner-Smith and Kaluuya are engaging performers and, as the couple’s relationship begins to blossom, so we begin to learn a little more about them. Melina Matsoukis’s direction is pretty solid too, though – on what is her first feature film – she makes a few missteps, sometimes allowing the momentum to stall, occasionally trying little arty flourishes that don’t quite come off . Furthermore, the screenplay by Lena Waithe contains elements that don’t always entirely convince: occasionally there’s the feeling that certain details may have been lost in the edit. The film’s conclusion feels somehow horribly inevitable. Would it have been more empowering to buck the trend and offer something a tad more optimistic?

Still, for a debut feature, this is pretty impressive stuff and feels like another useful addition to the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney