- 3 months ago
- #bonnieandclyde
- #documentary
Documentary: Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde were American outlaws who were notorious for a crime spree in the 1930s during the Great Depression. They committed a series of crimes, including robberies and murders, and were killed in a police ambush in 1934. The duo has been immortalized in books, movies, and musicals, such as the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.
You can watch this video to learn about the historical context of Bonnie and Clyde's story:
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow: The real couple, both born in Texas, became notorious criminals and a media sensation during the Great Depression.
Their crime spree: From 1932 to 1934, they, along with the Barrow Gang, traveled the Central United States, committing crimes like robbing gas stations, small stores, and banks.
Their notoriety: Their activities made them famous across the country, and the public was captivated by their story and the drama surrounding their life.
Key events
They first met in 1930, and their life of crime intensified after Clyde's parole in 1932.
The gang grew and shrunk, but Bonnie and Clyde remained the central figures.
Their crime spree ended when they were killed in an ambush by law enforcement officers in Louisiana on May 23, 1934.
This video shows the location where Bonnie and Clyde were killed:
#BonnieandClyde #Documentary
Bonnie and Clyde were American outlaws who were notorious for a crime spree in the 1930s during the Great Depression. They committed a series of crimes, including robberies and murders, and were killed in a police ambush in 1934. The duo has been immortalized in books, movies, and musicals, such as the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.
You can watch this video to learn about the historical context of Bonnie and Clyde's story:
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow: The real couple, both born in Texas, became notorious criminals and a media sensation during the Great Depression.
Their crime spree: From 1932 to 1934, they, along with the Barrow Gang, traveled the Central United States, committing crimes like robbing gas stations, small stores, and banks.
Their notoriety: Their activities made them famous across the country, and the public was captivated by their story and the drama surrounding their life.
Key events
They first met in 1930, and their life of crime intensified after Clyde's parole in 1932.
The gang grew and shrunk, but Bonnie and Clyde remained the central figures.
Their crime spree ended when they were killed in an ambush by law enforcement officers in Louisiana on May 23, 1934.
This video shows the location where Bonnie and Clyde were killed:
#BonnieandClyde #Documentary
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01Tonight...
00:02When those two saw each other, you could see the sparks fly right there.
00:06It's this whole Romeo and Juliet illicit romance.
00:10They became a symbol that actually people could seize control of their own fates.
00:15People could defy authority and they could get away with it.
00:18Bonnie and Clyde on American Experience.
00:30The last one, the clerks are ready.
00:35The clerks are ready.
00:49The clerks are ready.
01:00Exclusive corporate funding for American Experience is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance.
01:07American Experience is also made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
01:12and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
01:30Thousands attend the homecoming of Clyde Barrow.
01:33In this Dallas funeral home, his body lies as an ever-ending line of men, women, and children
01:39from every walk of life, filed by his casket for a fleeting glimpse of the boy who had wrought
01:44so much death and destruction.
01:46Everyone wants to see how such a bad boy looked in death.
01:50In life...
01:51Over three days in May of 1934, throngs of onlookers flocked to two Dallas funeral homes,
01:58hoping to catch a last glimpse of the outlaws, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.
02:04My dad said there was just lines and lines of people.
02:08They were mobbing the place.
02:10They couldn't have a decent funeral because everybody was just crowding around taking souvenirs.
02:15Clyde's body is born to the grave.
02:18He died at the hands of the law.
02:20My grandpa went down to the funeral home, to Clyde's viewing.
02:24It was probably a little bit of excitement for them.
02:27He was only one of thousands.
02:30Three miles across the city, from where Clyde's body lay, lies the body of Bonnie Parker.
02:35And here the crowd is even greater.
02:37Bonnie and Clyde had been on a two-year crime spree that left a trail of dead bodies in their wake.
02:43They were little more than a local curiosity until photos of the couple were discovered at a crime scene in 1933.
02:52Overnight, the country became transfixed by the scandalous images, press accounts of improbable escapes, and their illicit romance.
03:01Bonnie and Clyde, who people are sort of making up stories about or getting sightings of, all of a sudden there are pictures, there are guns, and there's evidence.
03:11It was a non-stop soap opera.
03:14Everybody was tuned in to the radios, everybody was reading the papers, and actually it was almost like they were rooting them to get away.
03:23Bonnie and Clyde would join the ranks of other celebrity gangsters like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Babyface Nelson.
03:32So-called public enemies who emerged out of nowhere during the Great Depression to capture the country's imagination.
03:40In a world where there was very little to get excited about in the summer of 1933, Bonnie and Clyde were pretty big names.
03:47Everybody was talking about the criminals, the bad guys.
03:52But Clyde and Bonnie had the one thing the others didn't, the whole true romance and the sexy scandal.
04:02Bonnie and Clyde's notoriety would force them to take even greater risks to remain free and on the open road.
04:10As law enforcement's hunt was kicked into overdrive.
04:15There wasn't going to be any arrest or any trial. It was going to be an execution.
04:20Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born in the Texas Cotton Belt on March 24, 1909.
04:38One of seven children of itinerant farmers Henry and Cumie Barrow.
04:44By 1925, the whole Barrow clan had followed a wave of other farmers who were flooding cities in search of work.
04:52With all their worldly possessions packed into a horse-drawn cart, the Barrows settled on the outskirts of Dallas in an impoverished backwater known as the Devil's Back Porch.
05:04Clyde Barrow grew up in an unincorporated slum, so poverty-stricken we couldn't imagine it today.
05:14And there's a campground right on the west bank of the Trinity River.
05:19And it's mostly mud. And there's one well. There's a few outhouses. And this is where the indigent lived.
05:27My grandfather and grandmother, they were just poor people trying to survive.
05:32And they camped out there in just that wagon, that little mule. And that's how they lived.
05:38No money, no food. Just as poor as you could be.
05:42So from the time this kid can really think, all he knows is there's no hope. This is it.
05:51I'm going to be poor. I'm going to be hungry. I'm going to be put down the rest of my life.
05:58Clyde chafed at the prospect of a life of poverty.
06:02Though he was slight, five feet, six inches, never more than 130 pounds,
06:07Clyde was bright, energetic, and a dreamer.
06:11He saw what he wanted just across the river in Dallas.
06:15A prosperous city with skyscrapers, endless entertainment, and streets lined with high-end shops.
06:22Dallas exposed Clyde to a life that was far beyond his grasp.
06:28He had dreams. You know, he wanted to do something rather than be poor the rest of his life.
06:34He hated poverty. And he hated looking like poverty.
06:38With a taste for expensive suits and a little interest in honest work,
06:43Clyde Barrow picked up the bad habits of his older brother, Buck,
06:47who had already settled into a life of petty crime.
06:50What started with the two brothers stealing chickens quickly grew into armed robbery.
06:56And by the time he was 17, Clyde was perfecting his signature crime.
07:01This is the first era of car theft.
07:06The electric starter system is put in cars.
07:11You could hotwire one.
07:13And Buck was a master of it, and he passed the skill along to little brother.
07:19Clyde Barrow didn't see stealing so much as a crime as almost an obligation.
07:27I want to get out of here. This is the only way I can do it.
07:34By 1929, Clyde's crimes were regularly drawing the attention of local police.
07:41In November of that year, Clyde, Buck, and an accomplice broke into an auto shop
07:46in the town of Denton, just outside Dallas.
07:50Local law enforcement spotted the robbers trying to flee and opened fire.
07:55And they shoot Buck. And they capture Buck.
08:01But Clyde runs all the way back home.
08:04It's a close call, but it's worth it.
08:07Because as long as he's stealing cars and getting a few dollars for them,
08:11he's somebody. And to him, that's worth any risk.
08:16Despite his brush with the law, Clyde's family was happy to have him close to home.
08:22And just a few months later, he would meet a young girl from the same side of the tracks,
08:28who shared his yearning for a better life.
08:38Smack-dab in the middle of Texas, in the small town of Rowena, Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born on October 1, 1910.
08:47Four years later, after her father's unexpected death, Bonnie's mother, Emma, moved the family not far from the slums of West Dallas.
08:57Despite the impoverished conditions, Emma made sure to raise her three children with the knowledge that they were somehow better than their surroundings.
09:06My dad was Bonnie's brother, and daddy was the oldest, and then Bonnie, and then my Aunt Billie Jean.
09:14She raised those three kids by herself. She literally was their everything.
09:19My daddy and Billie Jean, I know, were spoiled. So I'm quite sure Bonnie was spoiled, too.
09:26Bonnie was just a cute little Texas girl.
09:29Not quite five feet tall, with blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair, Bonnie Parker excelled at school, was a good singer and dancer, and enjoyed writing poetry.
09:42Like Clyde, she longed to escape the ceaseless poverty she saw everywhere.
09:48As a teenager, Bonnie would lose herself in the picture houses on the other side of the river in Dallas.
09:58Bonnie was tremendously influenced by motion pictures.
10:03What movies brought to the ordinary person was the road map to reinvention for yourself.
10:11You can be someone else. You can create a story for yourself and live it.
10:17You don't have to be locked into the way you were born.
10:22In 1926, 15-year-old Bonnie, against her mother's wishes, dropped out of school to marry her boyfriend,
10:30a small-time thief named Roy Thornton.
10:34She had a little bit of the wild side to her.
10:36She had a tattoo on the inside of her thigh with Roy's name on it.
10:41Just imagine a woman doing that back in the 20s.
10:44You know, that was a daring thing to do.
10:48Bonnie thinks she's going to have a storybook romance, true love just like you can see at the picture shows.
10:54Instead, Roy starts disappearing.
10:56Won't tell her where he's going.
10:58When she bothers him about it, he beats her up.
11:02The third time he leaves her, he doesn't come back.
11:07After her break from Roy, Bonnie's dissatisfaction with the unending boredom of poverty gushed forth in the pages of her journal.
11:16Blue as usual. Not a darn thing to do, she wrote. Why don't something happen?
11:23On January 5th, 1930, Clyde Barrow walked into her life.
11:30Clyde came along just at the right time for her.
11:33This guy with a new car that's stolen, but so what? It's a new car, and he's dressed in these fine clothes, and he's got lots of money, and he's got a good line, and he's got a great smile, and it just worked.
11:48Buster, her brother, Buster told me, he said, little Ted, he says, when those two saw each other, he said, you can see the sparks fly right there.
12:03Just weeks into their courtship, Clyde's outlaw ways finally caught up to him.
12:09Dallas police showed up at Bonnie's house with a warrant for his arrest.
12:14Clyde was sent to the county jail in Waco to await his trial and sentencing.
12:19But Clyde Barrow had no intention of being separated from Bonnie Parker for law.
12:25He knows where there's a gun, and he gets the idea to get her to go get that gun and bring it to him.
12:32On one visit, Clyde slipped Bonnie a note detailing his escape plan.
12:37He signed it, you are the sweetest baby in the world to me.
12:41This is where Bonnie has to make a choice.
12:44This is breaking the law herself. She can go to jail for this.
12:48On the other hand, if she does break him out, that's the kind of daring thing some of the pretty starlets do in the picture shows.
12:56So she says she'll do it.
13:00Bonnie hid the gun under her dress and successfully smuggled it into the jail.
13:05She was now Clyde's accomplice.
13:09The escape plan worked.
13:11Clyde and two other inmates fled the Waco jail that evening.
13:15However, their freedom was short-lived.
13:18They were arrested just seven days later.
13:21Bonnie returned to her mother in West Dallas.
13:25But Clyde was slapped with a 14-year sentence and was now on his way to one of the most notorious institutions in Texas.
13:33A prison so violent and untamed, it had earned the nickname, the Bloody Ham.
13:40When Clyde Barrow goes to prison, he's going into a state prison system that is not meant to rehabilitate prisoners.
14:02It is meant to be the worst possible hellhole.
14:08The convicts are treated like slave labor.
14:12They work all day long under the supervision of armed guards on horseback.
14:18They're given no break besides maybe five minutes for a cup of water and a crust of stale bread.
14:24They're beaten for the slightest transgression, and sometimes they're beaten for no reason at all.
14:32Clyde was assigned to the Easton Prison Farm, a 13,000-acre cotton plantation filled with the system's most violent offenders.
14:42And Clyde Barrow, this skinny little kid, is put among the worst of the worst on Easton.
14:52And what happens is inevitable.
14:55One of the inmates decides he's going to make this kid his own.
14:59And for months, Clyde is continually raped, and no one is going to save him.
15:09Clyde's attacker was a convict named Ed Crowder.
15:13Over six feet tall and 200 pounds, Crowder was an imposing figure.
15:20On October 29, 1931, Clyde decided to try to put an end to the abuse.
15:28Clyde sneaks a piece of galvanized pipe into the building, and he lures Ed Crowder back to the open toilets.
15:38Clyde goes back there by himself because he knows Crowder will follow him.
15:42As soon as Crowder catches up to him, he wheels around and just rips the top of his head open with this galvanized pipe.
15:49Crowder was dead, and another inmate serving a life sentence took the blame for the murder.
15:56But Clyde was still stuck in the bloody ham.
16:00The inmate's slave labor would go on for years, and he decided there was only one way out.
16:06At a certain point, he just lost it.
16:09And he gave another prisoner an ax and told him to cut off two of his toes so that he wouldn't have to go into the fields anymore.
16:16He's brought into the infirmary so he doesn't have to work in the field.
16:22And just as he does this, he finds out that his mother actually got him pardoned.
16:27Cumi Barrow had successfully petitioned the governor to release her son.
16:33Paroles were not uncommon at the time.
16:36They were used to help ease overcrowding.
16:39Clyde left prison just six days later, on February 2, 1932.
16:45He would have a limp for the rest of his life.
16:48He became a killer in prison.
16:51This fellow convict, Ralph Fultz, put it so well.
16:54He said, I saw Clyde Barrow change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake right in front of my eyes.
17:00He had his mind made up that he wasn't going back to the pimp.
17:04He told both of his parents, I'm not going back to that hell hole.
17:09They'll have to kill me first.
17:18He's somebody.
17:19He's in the big town doing things in a big way.
17:21Yeah, look at us.
17:23Just a couple of nobodies.
17:25Nothing.
17:27When Clyde comes out of prison in 1932,
17:30it was the beginning of the true crime era in America.
17:37The Depression is still there.
17:39It's still awful.
17:41People are poor all over the country.
17:43People are suffering.
17:45So many Americans think of the government, the police, the banks, as the villains.
17:52Those elements created the perfect audience.
17:56Everybody was talking about the criminals, the bad guys, and not in any sense being derogatory.
18:07The gangster figure represented somebody at the bottom of the social scale, condemned to a life of nothing, who did not accept that as their fate, and who found a way to change it, which was through violence.
18:24So it's socially acceptable to like this gangster who does everything you can't do and does it with so much success.
18:35That's the appeal.
18:39By the spring of 1932, Bonnie Parker had reunited with Clyde Barrow as he resumed his life of crime.
18:46After a botched robbery attempt, she was captured while Clyde got away.
18:53Bonnie found herself alone in a jail cell in Kaufman, Texas, awaiting a decision by a grand jury.
19:00Now, 21-year-old Bonnie was playing out a scene in her own movie.
19:08In a poem she wrote from her jail cell, Bonnie plays the part of a jilted girlfriend determined to win her man back.
19:15If he had returned to me sometime, though he hadn't a penny to give, I'd forget all this hell that he caused me and love him as long as I live.
19:26But there's no chance of his ever coming, for he and his maul have no fears, but that I will die in this prison or flatten this 50 years.
19:37She picked up that language from the pulp fiction magazines, from the tabloids, and from Hollywood.
19:45It says everything in there.
19:48She's using all the lingo, and she wants to be part of that world.
19:55Her mother reads these poems and says,
19:58this is not the daughter I raised, this is not the daughter I loved.
20:00She says, I began to see a strange and terrifying change in the mind of my child.
20:07Bonnie has made a switch to investing in this persona in which what honor means is to stick to your man no matter what.
20:17In June, a Kaufman grand jury set Bonnie free, unwilling to believe that any woman would choose to accompany criminals of her own volition.
20:26Just days after her release, Bonnie did just that.
20:38Taking their fate into their own hands, Bonnie, Clyde, and a revolving cast of ex-cons that would make up the Barrel Gang, set out on the open road, burning a path through two dozen states, robbing gas stations, banks, and grocery stores.
20:53Often storing just enough money to make it to the county line.
20:59They had to go to places where they weren't known, where they could more easily commit crimes.
21:03Once they committed those crimes, they would move as quickly as possible to get far away.
21:09From Dallas, they would go up through Oklahoma and Missouri.
21:14Clyde loved hitting banks in Iowa.
21:17They would go as far as Indiana, one case all the way to Ohio.
21:20They once even did a western trip out to New Mexico.
21:25He told his mom, he said, Mom, he says, all the money in the world is not going to make me free.
21:31So all he was interested was getting down the road and live another day.
21:36There was no incentive for him to go straight whatsoever, whereas he actually knew he was good at crime.
21:42He was good at stealing things. He was really good at driving. He was good at stealing cars.
21:49Fortunately for Clyde, Ford had just introduced the V8 engine, creating the most powerful car in mass production.
21:57With 300,000 miles of newly paved highway stretching before them and small town cops ill-equipped for a chase, Bonnie and Clyde were hard to catch.
22:07There were days when Clyde stole four cars.
22:12And he prides himself in stealing only the best, most powerful cars.
22:18And those Ford flathead V8s could flat out move.
22:22I mean, Clyde could and did often escape because he could go 70, 80, 90 miles an hour.
22:28And the law is chugging along at 35 miles after him.
22:33My father said that you chasing Clyde, and it looked like that little Ford would coil up like a snake and launch.
22:41And he said, every time it launched, he'd gain about 100 yards on you.
22:46And he said, after four corners, forget it. You're not going to find him. He's gone.
22:50Though Clyde would later tell his family that he always preferred to run rather than fight, he was preparing for both.
23:00He amassed an arsenal, including his gun of choice, the massive Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR, complete with armor-piercing bullets.
23:10National Guard armories were all over the states.
23:17Clyde, on a regular basis, would break in and steal the Browning Automatic Rifles, the fancy pistols, the good weapons.
23:25These weapons were not made available to local law enforcement officials.
23:29So, if the Barrel Gang was ever in a situation where, for some reason, they couldn't out-drive pursuit,
23:35they would always be in a position to out-shoot them.
23:37What started out as a joy-riding romance on the open highways slowly took a darker turn as Clyde began to deploy his deadly force more readily.
23:50Clyde could change at the snap.
23:54If you hemmed him up or if you snapped on him first, you had a war on your hands and the little man knew how to wage war.
24:02Clyde Barrow and his gang were responsible for the deaths of four men from April 1932 through January 1933.
24:15Eugene Moore, an undersheriff in Stringtown, Oklahoma, was gunned down at a community dance.
24:20Doyle Johnson was shot in front of his family on Christmas Day, trying to prevent Clyde from stealing his car.
24:29Clyde killed Malcolm Davis, a Fort Worth deputy, with a shotgun blast at point-blank range.
24:36Killing an officer of the law meant that if caught, Clyde would surely face the electric chair.
24:45I remember his sister asking, Clyde, how you felt now that he killed something?
24:49He said, sis, it makes me sick to my stomach.
24:51He said, they've got guns, I've got guns.
24:53You know, they're trying to kill me, and I'm trying to just get away.
24:56He says, I feel bad.
24:58It makes me feel sick that I had to take a human life.
25:01He said, but it was him or me.
25:05Clyde has a certain personal justification system.
25:09From Clyde's perspective, it was simply him reacting to a situation that he couldn't help.
25:15From his perspective, he was doing what he had to do.
25:18Remember, Clyde says he's never going back to prison.
25:23This means if there's a deputy standing between him and Freedom, that deputy's going to go.
25:42By 1933, the Barrow Gang's exploits were making news in a handful of Western states.
25:47Despite the risks, Bonnie and Clyde always found a way to see their families in West Dallas.
25:55Bonnie and Clyde, they were really very close to the family, very close, and they kept coming back.
26:02You know, back then, families banded together.
26:06They assumed the lines would be tapped, so Clyde would put a message in a Coke bottle,
26:12and he'd drive down the road and he'd toss out the Coke bottle with a message in it.
26:17Kimi would go call all the family members.
26:20She'd say, look, I've got a great big pot of beans and cornbread, or some fried chicken.
26:25She said, any way you can come over? Yep, we'll be there.
26:28So that was a signal that all the family were going to meet.
26:30The Barrows and Parkers rendezvoused with Bonnie and Clyde in secluded parks outside Dallas,
26:38where they'd feast on Kimi's home cooking.
26:41Bonnie would shower her family with gifts and cash, much needed during the Depression.
26:47Her mother, Emma, pleaded with her to give herself up, and even Clyde tried to convince Bonnie to leave him.
26:56You know, Clyde tried to get her to leave.
26:59He said, they're not after you, they're after me, and they're after me to kill me.
27:05But she wouldn't do it.
27:07And I guess he admired that in her.
27:10The love was so strong that no matter what he tried to do, she wasn't going to go.
27:14And her loyalty to him.
27:17It's a love that you don't see in today's world.
27:21I don't condone what they did.
27:24I resent her for the fact that she hurt the family so much.
27:29But on the other hand, I kind of admire her, you know, having that love, you know, and being capable of loving that deeply.
27:37By the spring of 1933, Bonnie and Clyde's criminal odyssey was into its second year.
27:46Now, two new travelers joined the ride.
27:50Clyde's brother, Buck, who was just recently paroled from prison, and his wife, Blanche.
27:56Both were welcomed additions to the gang.
28:00In April, the two couples and a young criminal protege named W.D. Jones were holed up in an apartment in Joplin, Missouri, taking a break from the road.
28:13Of all the places you could have picked to go for a vacation if you were on the run from the law, Joplin was a hotbed of bootleggers.
28:24So the cops were always on the lookout for anybody suspicious.
28:30On April 13th, the local authorities decided to investigate the Barrow Gang's hideout.
28:36John Harriman, a farmer moonlighting as a part-time peace officer, approached the house with Joplin police.
28:43They were armed only with pistols.
28:47Here are these Joplin cops thinking we're going to bust a couple of bootleggers.
28:53And instead, as one of them swings a car up to block the driveway so no one can get out, through the actual garage door comes this blast of powerful gunfire.
29:07And, of course, it's the Barrow Gang.
29:09If you're in a gunfight, and all you got is a little pistol, and you hear that BAR go off, you know that it's time to go home.
29:19Harriman died at the scene.
29:22His colleague, Joplin policeman Harry McGinnis, was so riddled with bullets, his arm was nearly detached.
29:30He would die before daybreak.
29:32The gang made off in one of their stolen Ford V8s.
29:38But what they left behind would change everything.
29:42After the gunfight at Joplin, because the group had to leave so fast, they left everything.
29:50Clothes, jewelry, weapons, and a couple of rolls of unprocessed film.
29:57And on this roll of film, there's some pictures of Bonnie Parker holding Clyde at gunpoint with a rifle.
30:06And the best picture of all.
30:10At a time when girls had to know their place and how to act like ladies.
30:17Here's Bonnie Parker leaning on the stolen car.
30:20In one hand, she's dangling a pistol, and in her mouth is a stogie.
30:29She always hated that picture.
30:32Of course, it was never intended to be published.
30:35None of those photos were.
30:37But on April 15th, the pictures were splashed across the front page of the Joplin Globe.
30:42And soon, the images of Bonnie, a gun-toting, cigar-chewing sexpot, and Clyde, her handsome leading man, were appearing in newspapers and magazines across the country.
30:55You have local reporters who are AP or UPI runners who jump on the story and are trying to sell the story.
31:02So, it becomes a reason to read the newspaper.
31:06They became a symbol that actually people could seize control of their own fates.
31:11People could defy authority and they could get away with it.
31:15The legend of Bonnie and Clyde was born.
31:18With the photos, the duo went from two-bit Texas hoods to mythic outlaws.
31:23They came at a time when you can really literally say a lot of Americans needed them.
31:31It's this whole Romeo and Juliet, illicit romance.
31:36A little spice, a little soap opera drama, at a time when the country's desperate for entertainment.
31:43Their cultural timing was absolutely perfect.
31:53After Joplin, Bonnie and Clyde were in near constant motion.
32:00Their fame was bringing too much attention.
32:04At first, running up and down the road was maybe kind of exciting, but after thousands and thousands of miles, I'm sure the excitement went away.
32:14Don't you know that they had to be the loneliest people?
32:17That had to be such a lonely life, you know?
32:21And to know that they're just another country road when you got through with that one.
32:26A lot of people say it was glamorous.
32:28No.
32:30I don't think living in a car and bathing in rivers and eating out of a sardine can is a way of life.
32:36They were just trying to stay alive is all they were doing.
32:40You know, just existing.
32:41One night in early June 1933, just outside the small town of Wellington, Texas, Clyde's legendary driving skills finally failed him.
32:54Clyde's coming in on the new road, but it ends.
32:58And there's a detour to the old road to use the bridge that's in place.
33:02Clyde's driving so fast he doesn't see it.
33:05The car flips over, catches fire.
33:07It's a wonder they weren't all killed right there.
33:11Clyde was thrown from the car, but Bonnie was trapped in the burning wreckage.
33:17With the help of a nearby family, Clyde eventually freed her.
33:22Bonnie's right leg had been horribly burnt.
33:24The farm family comes to try to get everyone out, and they managed to save Bonnie's leg by rubbing in baking powder and grease into it.
33:38But after this, Bonnie Elizabeth Parker is a cripple.
33:42When police arrived to investigate, Clyde commandeered their car and kidnapped the two officers, eventually setting them free 50 miles down the road.
33:56Bonnie and Clyde headed east for a rendezvous with Clyde's brother, Buck, in Oklahoma.
34:02Back on the road, Clyde ducked into small towns to pick up bandages and salve for Bonnie's burns.
34:12Can you imagine the pain that she went through and not being able to go to a hospital or anything?
34:19He could have brought her home and dumped her and gone on his way.
34:23You know, I think both of them were dedicated to each other because he took care of her.
34:30And if you ever wanted proof of that absolute, complete commitment, it's at this moment.
34:38And of course, this is also the time when it all starts to go downhill from there.
34:44In learning self-defense, they were told, if you are forced to shoot, then shoot straight.
34:59In 1933, the federal government began its national war on crime.
35:04A new crop of violent gangsters had suddenly emerged and was making headlines across the country.
35:09True crime was already popular in America, and some of the big-name criminals were celebrities.
35:17I mean, John Dillinger was movie star handsome.
35:21You had Ma Barker and her boys.
35:24You had the guy with the best nickname, Pretty Boy Floyd.
35:28They were doing some things on a large scale.
35:31J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Justice Department's Division of Investigation,
35:36warned of a criminal army that was sapping the spiritual and moral strength of America.
35:42Hoover advocated for a stronger federal police force to restore law and order for a nervous American public.
35:51From, like, 33, 34 is this pivot point in American culture where you're coming out of the nadir of the Great Depression,
35:58but Roosevelt has been elected, J. Edgar Hoover is getting the FBI organized,
36:03and you see the gangster figure kind of representing both our vicarious need for rebellion against the economic and the political system,
36:11but also the need we have for order and stability, because we're in a very terrifying time.
36:17Clyde Barrow now found himself on Hoover's list of wanted men, and federal agents in Dallas were assigned to track his movements.
36:28This desperate public enemy now rises to fame as an underworld hero.
36:33But it was the bank robber John Dillinger who was the centerpiece of Hoover's crusade, commanding no less than 38 agents alone.
36:40The barrow gang was in no way up there at the top level.
36:48The public, though, perceived that they were.
36:51And newspapers and true crime magazines would exaggerate their takes from different robberies,
36:57would give them credit for huge heists that they had nothing to do with.
37:01Despite what the press was writing, the Barrow gang remained very much a problem for local police,
37:10who had spent a year chasing the crime duo across multiple states.
37:14If they wanted to stop Bonnie and Clyde, they'd have to match their firepower.
37:19On July 20th, 1933, police officers, this time armed with heavy weapons and armor,
37:29cornered Clyde and the gang in a motel in Platte City, Missouri.
37:36After a bloody shootout, the gang managed to escape.
37:40But Clyde's brother Buck sustained a bullet wound to the head,
37:43and his wife, Blanche, was blinded by glass from a shattering windshield.
37:49Four days later, near Dexter, Iowa, the battered Barrow gang was again surrounded.
37:55Eager onlookers and the press, hoping to catch a glimpse of the now-famous outlaws,
38:01watched as police opened fire.
38:04Clyde is trying to have everybody run towards the brush by the side of the river.
38:09And Bonnie, of course, can't run. She has to be carried.
38:14Halfway towards the river, Buck says he can't make it.
38:18And Clyde realizes he has to leave his brother. That's the only way he can save Bonnie.
38:23Buck and Blanche are taken prisoner.
38:27And the Des Moines photographer from the newspaper runs up with his camera
38:31to take a picture of Blanche. And Blanche can barely see.
38:34And she thinks somebody's got a gun and is just going to execute them.
38:43Blanche went to prison.
38:45And Buck died a few days later.
38:48Before, death is an abstraction.
38:51Yeah, it'll happen sometime, but aren't we having fun?
38:54Well, now it's found him.
38:56After the shootout in Iowa, Clyde was taking even greater risks to stay on the road.
39:05And now, with Buck's death, he needed a new gang.
39:09In January of 1934, Bonnie and Clyde took part in an early morning raid of Easton Prison that freed five inmates.
39:19It was a satisfying bit of revenge, but set off a chain of events that not even the great escape artist Clyde Barrow could elude.
39:29After Clyde staged the raid on Easton, the head of the prison system, an extraordinarily effective bureaucrat named Lee Simmons, said,
39:39I'm going to bring these people in.
39:41There was no state police that were going to come in and help them.
39:44So Simmons felt like he had to do it himself.
39:46Simmons reached out to Frank Hamer, the most famous lawman in Texas.
39:51A former member of the notorious Texas Rangers, Hamer had spent half his life hunting criminals and had already killed 53 men during his service.
40:02Captain Frank Hamer was a legend among Texas Rangers.
40:07He was the roughest and toughest of them all.
40:10He used to tell new ranger recruits that the best way to enforce the law is a .45 slug in the gut, and he meant it.
40:17Lee Simmons told Frank Hamer to put Clyde and Bonnie on the spot and shoot everyone in sight.
40:24From the word go, there wasn't going to be any arrest or any trial.
40:29It was an execution.
40:32Hamer set out on the road in a rented Ford V8, meticulously retracing Bonnie and Clyde's path,
40:39looking for a pattern to their travels, or for anyone willing to give them up.
40:43In Louisiana, Hamer caught a break.
40:47The family of a fugitive named Henry Methvin, whom Clyde had just busted out of Easton Prison, wanted to cut a deal.
40:56Clemency for their son in exchange for Bonnie and Clyde.
40:59In May of 1934, a newsreel played before feature films across the country, detailing the cold-blooded killings of two Texas motorcycle officers.
41:17In it, an eyewitness claims to have seen a man and a woman step from a car to deliver the death blows.
41:35One was standing on either side of the car.
41:39They reached down and got their gun and came up when they were about ten feet away and says,
41:45boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
41:46William Schieffer, who was a farmer who lived a ways across, he claims that he heard Bonnie shooting one of the officers on the ground and saying,
41:58looky, Clyde, watch his head bounce.
41:59And here's the notorious couple Farmer Schieffer says he saw, Bandit Barrow and his girl companion Bonnie Parker.
42:06These photographs of the outlaws are being circulated by the police through the Southwest to aid in their identification.
42:12The girl always carries at least two guns.
42:15With Barrow, she's accused of a gun.
42:17They don't tell you that there were two versions of witnesses.
42:20One was old man Schieffer who was at his house that was three quarters of a mile across the valley.
42:30And then you've got another couple.
42:33They looked up the road in time to see a tall man and a smaller man shoot them.
42:40The tall man was Henry Methvin, the smaller man was Clyde.
42:45Henry Methvin was traveling with Bonnie and Clyde on Easter Sunday when the trio pulled over to rest near Grapevine, Texas.
42:55When the officer pulls up on the hill, Henry Methvin at North finds Clyde.
42:59He says, hey, look, it's the police. Clyde says, let's take them.
43:03Knowing Clyde and some of his escapades, it probably meant that he wanted to kidnap them.
43:09He wanted to take them on a ride like he had done with others.
43:12But Henry Methvin didn't take it that way.
43:16He thought it meant to kill him, and so he started shooting.
43:19Despite the shooting, Henry Methvin's role in the Grapevine murders seemed to be overlooked.
43:28This plan to pardon Henry Methvin was already in the works in the state of Texas if he helped bring them in over in Louisiana.
43:37And now he's involved in this double murder, and there's a clear attempt to hide the fact he was there at all.
43:44And to replace Methvin with Bonnie.
43:46On May 6th, Bonnie and Clyde held another secret rendezvous with their family.
43:59It would be their last.
44:01Their criminal exploits had taken a toll not only on themselves, but everyone around them.
44:07Buck was dead.
44:09Blanche was in prison.
44:11And the police were keeping up a steady stream of harassment, even hauling Clyde's mother, Cumi, down for interrogation.
44:19Henry and Cumi Barrow explained to Clyde that we haven't bought a headstone for Buck yet.
44:25Because we know you're going to die soon, too, and we can bury you with him.
44:30We don't have much money, and that way we can just use one headstone for both of you.
44:35And Clyde asked them to have something inscribed on it.
44:40Gone but not forgotten.
44:42During the visit, Bonnie presented her mother with a poem she had been working on called The End of the Line.
44:52Over the course of 16 stanzas, it tells the story of the couple's life on the run.
44:58They don't think they're too smart or desperate.
45:01They know that the law always wins.
45:04They've been shot at before, but they do not ignore that death is the wages of sin.
45:10Someday, they'll go down together.
45:12They'll bury them side by side.
45:14To a few, it will be grief.
45:16To the law, a relief.
45:19It is death for Bonnie and Clyde.
45:27I can imagine my grandmother just waiting for the phone call every day.
45:31And knowing that it was going to come is just when.
45:35That was so, to me, thoughtless of Bonnie.
45:40There's no doubt about it.
45:41Clyde Barrow knew exactly what he was doing.
45:43Bonnie Parker knew exactly what she was doing.
45:46And they wanted to be there all the way up to the bitter end.
45:54In mid-May, Bonnie and Clyde were in Louisiana.
45:57They had plans to meet Henry Methvin at his parents' home on Wednesday, May 23rd, at 9 a.m.
46:03The trap was set.
46:07Frank Hamer had assembled a posse that included deputy sheriffs of Dallas County, Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn,
46:14and other officers from Texas and Louisiana.
46:18Armed with automatic rifles and heavy-gauge shotguns, the posse took their place, hidden in the brush along Highway 154,
46:25the only road Clyde could take to the Methvin house.
46:33To make sure the couple didn't speed right by, Henry's father, Ivy, pretended his truck had broken down on the side of the road.
46:40If Clyde had come down through there driving the way he normally did at 70 to 90 miles an hour, they'd have had a skate shoot.
46:50If you're on the bluff, you can see almost half a mile down the road to see who's coming.
46:55But if you're in a car coming that way, you can't see anything ahead of you at all.
46:59Around 9.15 a.m., the posse could hear the high-pitched whine of a Ford V-8 barreling down the road.
47:12Clyde took the bait and slowed to help out Ivy Methvin.
47:18And Prentice Oakley, the deputy from Yenneville Parish, he popped off the first two rounds and hit Clyde right in the head.
47:27Clyde's foot slips off the clutch and the car goes idling off up into the ditch.
47:35The ditch is one thought, ran through everyone's mind.
47:40This clown's gotten out of 11 traps before now. Is this number 12?
47:45And with that, everybody unloaded.
47:48They unleashed an incredible volley that basically shredded that car and the people in it.
47:58The shootout lasted only seconds, but in the end, the car was riddled with more than 150 bullets.
48:05Ted Hinton says when they pulled them out of the car, they were nothing but wet racks.
48:12So you can understand what a steel jacket bullet can do to a human body.
48:17Clyde's head was pretty well blown off.
48:21And she's blown off to pieces.
48:23My father had a 16-millimeter home movie camera.
48:29The staff photographer for the Dallas Times Herald gave it to him.
48:33He told him, he said, you're going to get them eventually, and when you do, you're going to need to document it.
48:38He carried that camera for 17 months.
48:41The posse sorted through Bonnie and Clyde's possessions.
48:47Bonnie's makeup case, several suitcases, road maps, and true crime magazines.
48:54Hamer claimed their guns and fishing tackle as a reward.
49:03Word spread quickly, and people began to crowd Highway 154.
49:07Souvenir hunters scavenged through the carnage.
49:12People started coming in, clipping off pieces of clothing.
49:17One man took a pocket, and I was trying to cut off Clyde's trigger finger as a trophy.
49:24One person was stopped by one of the officers from trying to take Bonnie's wedding ring off her hand.
49:31Later that evening, Bonnie and Clyde's parents retrieved the bodies, having learned of their deaths when reporters called for comment.
49:44My grandfather said, you know, it was terrible what he saw.
49:48They broke him down to tears, you know, having to go pick his son up and seeing what the condition they were.
49:53In life, his very presence would have struck fear to their heart, but now they fear him not.
50:01Clyde's body is born to the grave.
50:04Again, tragedy and shame descend upon his aged father and mother.
50:08Back in Dallas, the spectacle of Bonnie and Clyde's demise grew tens of thousands of onlookers.
50:14All of them anxious to catch a last glimpse of the outlaw lovers they had read so much about.
50:21A large floral arrangement was sent from the Dallas newspaper vendors.
50:26In two days, they had sold almost half a million copies of extra editions.
50:30To a few, it means brief. To the law, it's relief. But it's death to Bonnie and Clyde.
50:43The couple, who had always been inseparable in life, were buried in family plots in different cemeteries.
50:50My grandmother, she would not allow them to be buried side by side.
50:54She said he had her in life. He couldn't have her in death.
51:11Full stop for these criminals, dead ones.
51:14Here you'll find notorious names that made evil headlines of crime.
51:17By 1935, just a year after Bonnie and Clyde's deaths, Hoover's lawmen had eradicated all of the Depression-era gangsters.
51:32Bonnie and Clyde may have been the first to go down, but their story overshadowed all the rest.
51:38Not because of their crimes, or even their violent downfall, but for their enduring true romance.
51:44This type of story has been with us pretty much from the first printed word.
51:52And it carries down.
51:55Whether you're talking about the fall of Troy, Romeo and Juliet.
52:00It's always going to end in tragedy.
52:03We've always got this star-crossed aspect.
52:06Bonnie and Clyde fit that perfectly.
52:10And they fit it naturally.
52:11And it's because they fit it so naturally, because that's who they were, that they continue to resonate.
52:21And it's because of the fact that they're not going to resonate.
52:29Exclusive corporate funding for American Experience is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance.
52:34American Experience is also made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
52:40And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
52:51There's more American Experience online at PBS.org, where you can find out how to join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter.
53:04American Experience, Bonnie and Clyde is available on DVD.
53:21To order, visit shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
53:27American Experience is also available for download on iTunes.
53:30Toons.
53:3110.
Comments