Vitals

Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow, Depression-era bank robber and gang leader

Across the American South and Midwest, Spring 1932 to 1934

Film: Bonnie & Clyde
Release Date: August 13, 1967
Director: Arthur Penn
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle

Background

Ninety years ago today on the morning of May 23, 1934, a light-gray Ford V-8 sedan traveling northeast on a rural Louisiana highway slowed as it approached a truck stopped by the side of the road. Suddenly, volleys of rifle fire peppered the car, obliterating the young couple in the front seat. After an estimated 167 rounds were fired, a half-dozen lawmen emerged from their ambush positions and approached the Ford, in which wanted outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were now unquestionably dead.

Despite their bloody crime spree that left at least a dozen men dead, Bonnie and Clyde captivated the fascination of a Depression-era public that often celebrated the exploits of contemporary outlaws like John Dillinger and “Pretty Boy” Floyd. The scrappy couple was hardly as criminally capable as their fellow “Public Enemies”, but Clyde’s remarkable ability to escape police traps and Bonnie’s frequent involvement added a romantic element that made them a newspaper favorite, especially after the discovery of undeveloped photos depicting the Barrow gang at play, including Bonnie smoking one of Clyde’s cigars—crafting a public image she would greatly resent—and holding him at gunpoint with one of the gang’s cut-down shotguns.

The frequent news coverage during their lifetime ensured that Bonnie and Clyde wouldn’t be quickly forgotten after their deaths, inspiring a string of “couple of the run” crime movies like You Only Live Once (1937) and the films noir They Live By Night (1948) and Gun Crazy (1950). The couple’s story formed the basis for the highly fictionalized The Bonnie Parker Story, an exploitative 1958 quickie from American International Pictures starring Dorothy Provine as the “cigar-smoking hellcat of the roaring thirties” and Jack Hogan as her simping partner-in-crime, uh, “Guy Darrow”.

The outlaw couple would be immortalized on screen after the release of Bonnie & Clyde in 1967, produced by Warren Beatty who also starred as Clyde opposite newcomer Faye Dunaway as a redoubtable Bonnie Parker. The cast also included Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, and Estelle Parsons, who received an Academy Award for her portrayal of Clyde’s sister-in-law Blanche, despite the real Blanche’s protestation that “that movie made me look like a screaming horse’s ass!”

True enough, Blanche, as Bonnie & Clyde was hardly a definitive retelling of the gang’s actual history… nor was it intended to be. Influenced by French New Wave cinema, screenwriters Robert Benton and David Newman crafted a script inspired by the true events and figures but refocused through a lens of contemporary counterculture that centered the Barrow gang less as dangerous criminals and more as romanticized anti-authoritarian folk heroes fighting back against an oppressive establishment.

Winning two of its ten Academy Award nominations (including Best Supporting Actress for Parsons and Best Cinematography for Burnett Guffey), Bonnie & Clyde revolutionized cinema with its daring blend of graphic violence with a sympathetic portrayal of antiheroes that challenged traditional storytelling and censorship norms, signaling the emergence of the “New Hollywood” movement.

What’d He Wear?

Bonnie & Clyde was the first credit for costume designer Theadora Van Runkle, who received an Academy Award nomination and inspired a fashion phenomenon for her costumes that reimagined the style of the 1930s with a contemporary relevance. The Pittsburgh-born Van Runkle would continue her collaboration with Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) while also designing the noteworthy costumes in Bullitt (1968) and The Godfather Part II (1974).

Van Runkle establishes an everyday “uniform” for Warren Beatty’s characterization of Clyde, wearing his shirts buttoned to the neck with waistcoats and trousers pulled from his slapdash road closet of ’30s-inspired suits. Indeed, he often wears the full suits with ties—especially when dressing to make an impression during a bank robbery—though Clyde typically defaults to dressing down to a waistcoat and trousers, keeping his shirt buttoned to the neck even when it’s not fully tucked in.

The real-life gang’s fondness for photographing each other and their family may have provided a misleading basis for Van Runkle’s costume design. A snapshot from one of the Barrow-Parker family reunions—perhaps the November 1933 gathering soured by a law ambush immediately afterward—shows the real Clyde Barrow standing in front of a 1933 Ford, proudly holding one of his many Browning Automatic Rifles. In addition to a fedora, he wears an open waistcoat and trousers from a dark suit, with his light-colored tie easily mistaken for an “air tie”—the colloquial shorthand for a shirt buttoned to the neck without an actual tie.

Of course, Bonnie & Clyde is a stylized interpretation of the outlaws not meant to be a completely accurate reflection of what the actual figures wore—as demonstrated by Faye Dunaway’s knee-length skirts that would have been scandalously short for 1930s Texas or the red-banded fedora that Gene Hackman wore as Clyde’s older brother Buck, inviting criticism from a Barrow family member standing by during the production.

Van Runkle likely drew upon the themes from the script to create her own image of Clyde, a man who signals his sexual repression by always wearing his shirts buttoned to the neck… at least until the final act of the film, when his repression (and his collar!) have been loosened by finally consummating his relationship with Bonnie.

“We Rob Banks”

The morning after they meet, Clyde greets Bonnie at the doorway of the dilapidated farmhouse where they spent the night—or at least where she spent the night, as he slept out in the car, portending the trajectory of their physical relationship over the months to follow. This moment debuts Clyde’s characteristic “air ties”, around the same time we learn that—in addition to the fact that he understandably “ain’t much of a lover boy” during a high-speed getaway—he clearly also didn’t sleep with Bonnie that night.

Clyde’s shirt is made from a cream-colored off-white cotton, styled with a point collar, button cuffs, and a front placket with seven pearl-white plastic 4-hole buttons that he wears buttoned to the neck through this scene and most to follow.

The brown herringbone wool waistcoat (vest) is patterned with spaced-out rust chalk-stripes, likely orphaned from a suit though we never see its matching jacket or trousers through the entirety of Bonnie & Clyde. He misses the second of the five brown buttons on the front, correctly leaving the bottom one undone over the notched bottom. The solid brown satin-finished back has an adjustable strap to cinch the fit at the waist, and the front features four welted pockets—common from this era when waistcoats covered more of the wearer’s torso and occasionally needed to accommodate a pocket-watch.

Clyde continues wearing the dark-navy pinstripe flat-front trousers that he had worn the previous day, on that occasion orphaned with a distressed brown double-breasted jacket. Styled with curved front pockets, button-through back pockets, and era-correct turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms, these trousers are part of a three-piece suit that he later wears for an attempted bank robbery. He holds the trousers up with a well-worn black edge-stitched leather belt that closes through a gold-toned single-prong buckle, likely preferred to suspenders as he can balance the weight of his shoulder holster by strapping the bottom of it around his belt. He also continues wearing the dirty brown-and-white wingtip spectator oxford brogues that nearly scandalized Bonnie when he hoisted his right shoe onto a fire hydrant to unlace it and show Bonnie the toes he chopped off in prison.

After fumbling their first bank robbery attempt by sticking up a bank that’s been out of business for weeks, Clyde strips off his double-breasted suit jacket and tie he had worn to look the part of a gentleman thief, dressed in the matching waistcoat and trousers of his dark-navy pinstripe three-piece suit. He keeps the front placket of his cream-colored cotton shirt buttoned up to the neck as usual, completing the look with his distressed brown striped tweed newsboy cap as he and Bonnie recruit the dimwitted C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard) into their gang.

Family Reunion in Joplin

Bonnie & Clyde brings together the five principal stars of its cast when the Barrow brothers Clyde and Buck reunite following the latter’s release from prison. The movie condenses a fortnight of activity to a day or two, beginning with a joyous reunion in an anonymous motor court where Clyde and Buck introduce each other to Bonnie, C.W., and Blanche. (In real life, Clyde and Bonnie paid a late-night visit to Blanche’s family farmhouse in Wilmer, Texas, arranging to meet Buck and Blanche—with whom Clyde had already been well-acquainted—five days later in Checotah, Oklahoma, from which they would proceed to Joplin.)

For this initial reunion, Beatty’s Clyde wears a variation of his usual “air tie” shirt, waistcoat, and trousers—all new clothes from anything we’ve seen before. The shirt is white with blue pencil stripes, styled with a spread collar, front placket with pearl-white 4-hole buttons, and pointed cuffs that close through a single button.

Like the brown herringbone waistcoat, his charcoal twill single-breasted waistcoat has no matching jacket or trousers seen on screen. The six black 2-hole buttons are positioned on a step-extended front, which he leaves totally open throughout this sequence. There are four welted front pockets, no back strap, and the lining is dark-charcoal with a mini white floral print.

Clyde’s brown trousers are part of a matching three-piece woolen flannel suit, seen in its entirety only in wardrobe test footage though he would later wear the matching waistcoat and trousers together during the Platte City gunfight. These flat-front trousers have side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottom. Rather than the flashier spectator shoes he wore during his first days with Bonnie, Clyde now wears more sober black calfskin leather cap-toe oxford shoes.

Clyde wears the same black edge-stitched leather belt, inexplicably with the buckle undone and the end hanging free, as though he hadn’t finished dressing by the time Buck and Blanche arrive… though he still had time to put on his fawn-colored felt self-edged fedora with its brown grosgrain band.

For the drive up to Joplin, Beatty’s Clyde keeps the same open charcoal twill waistcoat and brown flannel trousers but has changed into one of his favorite cream cotton shirts. For a truly slapdash look, he layers on the dark-navy pinstripe double-breasted suit jacket and keeps both that and the waistcoat unbuttoned with his beige-and-brown “uphill”-striped tie—the same he would wear when the gang meets and photographs Frank Hamer (Denver Pyle) in the woods.

Bonnie and Blanche are depicted taking an instant disliking to each other, and their animosity only grows as soon as they take up residence in the cramped apartment in Joplin. A delivery boy overhears Blanche call out “Clyde, go help Bonnie!” followed by suspicious hushed tones and shadows at the window. Soon enough, Clyde notices “the laws are outside!” As a panicked Blanche screams (much to the dismay of her real-life counterpart, watching the film 34 years later), the other four take up arms and shoot their way out.

Clyde leaves both the suit jacket and his white Panama hat behind after tossing them on the bed shortly after their arrival, but—in a costume-related continuity error—we later see him wearing both of these presumably abandoned garments.

As with much of its narrative, the movie simplifies the actual events but maintains the general gist of truth as the recently paroled Buck had been planning to embark on an honest life with his wife Blanche but was talked into a brief family vacation with his fugitive little brother Clyde’s fledgling gang in Joplin, Missouri, then considered a generally safe town for criminals to hideout, as long as they had the good sense to not commit any crimes in Joplin.

Of course, the Barrow gang wasn’t known for its good sense. During their two weeks in Joplin, Clyde committed several local larcenies, holding up a filling station and robbing a nearby National Guard armory of several of his favorite Browning Automatic Rifles. Accidentally discharging one inside the group’s rented house at 3347½ Oak Ridge Drive was likely the .30-06 straw that broke the camel’s back, and suspicious neighbors called the police.

Thursday, April 13, 1933 was intended to be the Barrow gang’s penultimate day in Joplin, as Buck and Blanche would return home the following day. Fate intervened late that afternoon as five local lawmen arrived at the home to serve a warrant on the disruptive tenants, unaware of their actual identity. Clyde led the gang’s immediate response with shotgun and rifle fire, killing constable Wes Harryman and detective Harry L. McGinnis before the criminal quintet made their hasty escape in one of Clyde’s stolen V-8 Fords. These were the seventh and eighth murders attributed to the gang in less than a year since Clyde’s release from prison, and it marked a turning point as Buck and Blanche—forced to abandon their belongings and damning paperwork (like their marriage license)—would now be intrinsically associated with the gang and their deadly crime spree that just claimed two more lives.

An Amusing Abduction

Two weeks after the Joplin gunfight, the real-life Barrow gang kidnapped Louisiana mortician H. Dillard Darby and Sophia Stone, a local woman who offered to give Darby a ride in chasing down the gang that had just stolen his car. Unfortunately, the gang was the heavily armed Barrow gang… fortunately, the gang eventually released the pair several hours later after crossing the border into Arkansas.

The abduction was depicted as a lighthearted romp in Bonnie & Clyde, reimagining the victims as the young couple Eugene Grizzard (Gene Wilder, in his first credited screen appearance) and Velma Davis (Evans Evans). Rather than scouting a bank to rob in real life, the gang was looking for a car to replace the DeSoto that Clyde ran raw during their getaway from the most decidedly successful bank heist pictured on screen. They decide on Grizzard’s green two-toned Nash sedan, absconding with it and—after they give chase in Velma’s Studebaker—the young couple themselves.

Clyde had dressed for the robbery in a brown herringbone tweed three-piece suit that was surely handsome but also oppressively hot in the Texas heat. He understandably ditches the single-breasted jacket—as well as his green polka-dot tie—for this adventure, remaining clad for the kidnapping in the seven-button waistcoat and matching flat-front trousers. He also continues wearing his dusty white Panama hat, his presumably new black-and-white leather wingtip spectator oxford brogues, black socks, and shoulder holster.

The Platte City Gunfight

If the Joplin gunfight was a turning point for the will-o’-the-wisp Barrows, the Platte City gunfight three months later was a drop from a precipice. Surrounded by police on the night of July 19, 1933 in the Red Crown Tourist Court at the U.S. Route 71 junction near Platte City, Missouri (not Iowa!), the gang of five barely managed to escape after a thunderous shootout that left Buck fatally wounded with a head wound and Blanche wounded in one eye from flying shards of glass.

Clyde wears a simple variation of his usual “air tie” and waistcoat uniform, sporting one of his cream shirts buttoned to the neck with the brown flannel flat-front suit trousers he had worn in Joplin, now sported with the matching seven-button waistcoat. He again wears his black leather belt and coordinated black oxfords.

Recovery

After the Platte City gunfight and subsequent incident at Dexfield Park in Dexter, Iowa, where the mortally wounded Buck and half-blind Blanche were captured by authorities, Clyde and Bonnie are depicted taking refuge with C.W. Moss’ father Malcolm (Dub Taylor) in rural Louisiana. Here, Clyde nurses his wounded left arm by crafting one of his shirts into a makeshift sling, undoing the second-to-last button and resting his arm on the tension created by the fastened bottom button.

Seen earlier during the scene when he stops Bonnie from running away, the light slate-gray cotton shirt is alternately striped in dark-gray and white. It has a narrow semi-spread collar, front placket with six pearl-white 4-hole buttons, and single-button rounded cuffs. He wears it untucked with the dark-navy pinstripe suit trousers that also magically reappeared in Clyde’s closet despite the many times he’s had to abandon his wardrobe while on the run.

“…but it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde”

Finally, we come to the depiction of May 23, 1934—the day that Hamer’s posse finally ambush and kill Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. I’ve already written at length about the “death outfit” that Theadora Van Runkle designed for Beatty’s Clyde, so I’ll keep the description to a high level.

Bonnie’s beige dress reverts her appearance to the simple attire she favored when the story began, before she adopted her iconic berets and the more sophisticated fashions of a gangster’s moll. (In real life, she was wearing a red dress when she was killed, but this level of authenticity would have avoided the bloody shock of her bullet-riddled body during the film’s final moments.)

Clyde maintains his usual manner of dressing but with a new waistcoat and trousers that we’ve never seen before this moment, presumably purchased locally to replace the wardrobe he left behind in the cars abandoned at Platte City and Dexfield Park.

The dark-gray birdseye-woven waistcoat has six buttons up the front and just two lower welted pockets rather than the quartet on some of his other waistcoats. The back is satin-finished in the same distinctive Deco-style print as the inner lining, featuring tilted rows of gray-filled and gray-outlined squares against a charcoal ground. The tapered cut is shaped with darts, foregoing a strap to adjust the fit.

The cream cotton shirt is one of Clyde’s usual, buttoned back up to the neck, despite his brief open-necked reprieve after finally having sex with Bonnie. He keeps the left side untucked, covering the .38 tucked in his waistband that we briefly see when his body hits the ground during the climactic ambush.

Held up by his black leather belt with the gold-toned single-prong buckle, Clyde’s trousers are a black-and-white small-scaled houndstooth check (often colloquialized as “puppytooth”) that presents as a semi-solid light-gray. These flat-front trousers are cut like his others, with belt loops, curved front pockets, button-through back pockets (with black buttons), and turn-ups (cuffs).

In addition to removing his black leather oxfords to drive in his black socks, Clyde suffers a wardrobe malfunction in the form of losing the left lens of his orange plastic round-framed sunglasses. “You’re gonna wear ’em like that?” Bonnie asks. “Drive with one eye closed,” he responds.

In addition to Bonnie’s red dress and sequined tam hat, the real Clyde Barrow died wearing a navy-blue wool suit, blue patterned western-style two-pocket shirt, tan fedora, and a belt with a hefty five-pointed star buckle. Indeed, it was reported that he also wore octagonal metal-framed sunglasses and socks without shoes—supposedly a concession he often made to be more comfortable after the prison incident that cost him two of his toes two years earlier.

The Guns

Bonnie & Clyde outfits the eponymous outlaws with a rotation of firearms often seen in ’30s gangster movies from six-shooters to Tommy guns, though it neglects to depict the powerful Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) that Clyde Barrow was known to prefer in real life.

To win Bonnie’s attraction and solidify his claim as an armed robber, the phallic symbol revolver that Clyde whips out from the folds of his clothing is a blued Smith & Wesson .38 Military & Police, later to be designated the “Model 10” after Smith & Wesson transitioned to a numerical nomenclature in the 1950s. The traditional double-action Military & Police/Model 10 was a favored service revolver for American law enforcement for much of the 20th century, chambered in .38 Special.

Clyde often uses his Smith & Wesson .38 alongside a larger-framed Colt New Service revolver. Introduced in 1896, the traditional double-action New Service was produced by Colt for nearly a half-century in a variety of calibers like the rifle rounds .38-40 Winchester and .44-40 Winchester to venerable handgun loads like .357 Magnum, .38 Special, .44 Special, and .45 Long Colt.

After their first night together, Clyde shows off his skills for Bonnie by shooting six rounds from the hip with his Smith & Wesson. “I ain’t good, I’m the best,” he assures her, before handing her the loaded Colt to take her shot at a tire swing. They celebrate after her second shot sends it spinnin’, but Clyde assures her “I’m gonna get you a Smith & Wesson, gonna go in your hand easier…”

The real Clyde’s preference for Army ordinance included the M1911A1, the single-action .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol designed by John Browning that reigned as the standard American military service pistol for most of the 20th century. Originally produced by Colt, the mil-spec M1911A1 typically measures out to an 8.5-inch overall length with a 5-inch barrel, taking seven rounds of .45 ACP in box magazines and an additional round in the chamber, though the 1911 design has been applied to handguns of varying dimensions and calibers over its century-long tenure.

M1911A1 pistols make a few cameos in Bonnie & Clyde, most prominently wielded akimbo with a Smith & Wesson .38 during the gang’s successful Texas robbery. Several scenes earlier, there’s also a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brief glimpse during the Joplin gunfight where Clyde clearly fires an M1911A1 out the window at police.

Clyde, Bonnie, and C.W. are seen wielding Thompson M1921AC submachine guns during the Platte City gunfight, putting up a formidable resistance against the surrounding police that allows them to escape—albeit not totally unscathed.

Designed by Brigadier General John T. Thompson in the years following World War I, these portable submachine guns became a fast favorite among cops and crooks alike as they could deliver sustained automatic fire of powerful .45 ACP ammunition from either 20-round box magazines or 50- or 100-round drum magazines at a rate of over 700 rounds per minute. This heavy rate of fire could cause the barrel to climb, resulting in the addition of the Cutts compensator muzzle brake in 1926 (M1921AC) and the Navy-authorized model with a heavier actuator that slowed the rate of fire (M1928).

Despite their military pedigree, the “Tommy gun” was initially immortalized as the “Chicago typewriter” for its infamous use during the deadly Chicago Beer Wars of the 1920s. The design was simplified going into World War II with the distinctive forward handgrip replaced with a straightforward horizontal hand-guard, the charging handle moved to the side, and other changes that made the M1928A1 and its subsequent M1 and M1A1 models appropriate for wartime usage that breathed a more heroic connotation into the Thompson’s heritage following its notorious decades associated with bloody gangsterdom.

As mentioned earlier, it was actually the Browning Automatic Rifle that the real Clyde Barrow kept in his arsenal, though there have been a few documented moments early in the Barrow gang’s spree where they maintained “Tommy guns”, such as the few that Barrow and Ralph Fults purchased from an Illinois pawn shop owner in the spring of 1932 and the Thompson that kidnapped motorcycle policeman Tom Persell spied among the gang’s arsenal after he was kidnapped by Clyde, Bonnie, and W.D. Jones in January 1933.

How to Get the Look

Though details like the specific colors, cloths, and patterns varied, Warren Beatty’s Clyde Barrow typically adheres to the uniformity of a light-colored shirt buttoned to the neck with a slapdash waistcoat and trousers pulled from the suits in his road closet.

• Cream cotton shirt with point collar, front placket, and rounded single-button cuffs
• Brown or dark-gray wool single-breasted 5-, 6-, or 7-button waistcoat (vest) with four welted pockets and notched bottom
• Brown or dark-navy pinstripe flat-front suit trousers with belt loops, curved side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black edge-stitched leather belt with gold-toned single-prong buckle
• Black calfskin leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black socks
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• Light-brown leather shoulder holster with beige woven support strap

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The Quote

Ain’t life grand?