Violence and a type of criminal romance, dramatized by frustrated sex, are the themes of this action film, based on a real episode in the lawless period of depression America. Warren Beatty hardly seems the desperado type, but Faye Dunaway is convincing in her role as his companion in robbery and murder. Beatty is also the producer, with Arthur Penn (stage director for "Toys in the Attic" and "The Miracle Worker") as director, from a story by Robert Newman and David Benton, both writers for Esquire Magazine. Of its kind, this is an excellent dramatization of outlaws against society who kill and loot, partly for the thrill and partly for monetary gain. Pitting themselves against the law, they lead officers a merry chase and play a dangerous game when they humiliate one they neglect to kill afterwards. Bonnie writes some doggerel verse that Clyde is foolish enough to send to a newspaper, which publishes it. This pinpoints their whereabouts, so their saga ends abruptly as it began. That crime does not pay can be deduced from the end of the unique couple -- but it has been paying at the motion picture theatre boxoffice for so long that this will probably be no exception. In Technicolor.

THE STORY:
Faye Dunaway interrupts Warren Beatty trying to steal her mother's car. Bored with her job as a small town waitress, she teams up with him for a series of robberies of grocery stores, filling stations and banks. Along with their teaming up as outlaws is a romantic attachment, frustrated by his impotence. They add Michael J. Pollard to their activities as car heister and wheelman -- then Beatty's recently released-from-prison brother (Gene Hackman) whose nervous wife (Estelle Parsons) earns Faye's scorn during holdup jobs. The five are being hunted by police in several states and in Joplin they are surrounded, the brother and wife killed. The wounded Beatty and Faye escape and take refuge with Pollard's father, who turns them in to get a mild sentence for his son. Trapped, the notorious couple are riddled by gunfire from an ambush and their career of crime ended. Ironically, he had just been able to become Faye's real lover in a physical sense.

EXPLOITIPS:
Dig up old newspaper clippings about the crime career of "Bonnie and Clyde" and make up a composite ad from these. Have the song of that title sung on local radio stations.

CATCHLINES:
All in all they killed 19 people, robbing stores, gas stations and banks... "Bonnie and Clyde" -- Notorious lovers of the 30's... Outlaws on a rampage. Warner Bros.-7 Arts 111 mins.