An artistic exploration of the "Public Enemy Era", its protagonists: its famous G-men and the infamous fugitives they chased, its urban legends and the hollywood glamour through which it was later perceived.
Saturday, 18 December 2010
The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde
Sunday, 25 July 2010
The swing of things
Here's the tailer for Terrence Malick's Badlands. Great film and a little more like what I wish Bonnie and Clyde had been.
and Angels with Dirty Faces (great 1938 Boghart and James Cagney film)
Saturday, 24 July 2010
Bonnie Parker's Poetry
We each of us have a good "alibi"
For being down here in the "joint;"
But few of them really are justified
If you get right down to the point.
You've heard of a woman's glory
Being spent on a "downright cur,"
Still you can't always judge the story
As true, being told by her.
As long as I've stayed on this "island,"
And heard "confidence tales" from each "gal,"
Only one seemed interesting and truthful ---
The story of "Suicide Sal."
Now "Sal" was a gal of rare beauty,
Though her features were coarse and tough;
She never once faltered from duty
To play on the "up and up."
"Sal" told me this take on the evening
Before she was turned out "free,"
And I'll do my best to relate it
Just as she told it to me:
I was born on a ranch in Wyoming;
Not treated like Helen of Troy;
I was taught that "rods are rulers"
And "ranked" as a greasy cowboy.
Then I left my old home for the city
To play in its mad dizzy whirl,
Not knowing how little pity
It holds for a country girl.
There I fell for "the line" of a "henchman,"
A "professional killer" from "Chi;"
I couldn't help loving him madly;
For him even now I would die.
One year we were desperately happy;
Our "ill gotten gains" we spent free;
I was taught the ways of the "underworld;"
Jack was just like a "god" to me.
I got on the "F.B.A." payroll
To get the "inside lay" of the "job;"
The bank was "turning big money!"
It looked like a "cinch" for the "mob."
Eighty grand without even a "rumble"-
Jack was the last with the "loot" in the door,
When the"teller" dead-aimed a revolver
From where they forced him to the floor.
I knew I had only a moment -
He would surely get Jack as he ran;
So I "staged a ""big fade out" beside him
And knocked the forty-five out of his hand.
They "rapped me down big" at the station,
And informed me that I'd get the blame
For the "dramatic stunt" pulled on the "teller"
Looked to them too much like a "game."
The "police" called it a "frame-up,"
Said it was an "inside job,"
But I steadily denied any knowledge
Or dealings with "underworld mobs,"
The "gang" hired a couple of lawyers,
The best "fixers" in any man's town,
But it takes more than lawyers and money
When Uncle Sam starts "shaking you down."
I was charged as a "scion of gangland"
And tried for my wages of sin;
The "dirty dozen" found me guilty -
From five to fifty years in the pen.
I took the "rap" like good people,
And never one "squawk" did I make.
Jack "dropped himself"on the promise
That we make a "sensational break."
Well, to shorten a sad lengthy story,
Five years have gone over my head
Without even so much as a letter -
At first I thought he was dead.
But not long ago I discovered
From a gal in the joint named Lyle,
That Jack and he "moll" had "got over"
And were living in true "gangster style."
If he had returned to me sometime,
Though he hadn't a cent to give,
I'd forget all this hell that he's caused me,
And love him as long as I live.
But there's no chance of his ever coming,
For he and his moll have no fears
But that I will die in prison,
Or "flatten" this fifty years.
Tomorrow I'll be on the "outside"
And I'll "drop myself" on it today:
I'll "bump 'em" if they give me the "hotsquat"
On this island out here in the bay …
The iron doors swung wide next morning
For a gruesome woman of waste,
Who at last had a chance to "fix it."
Murder showed in her cynical face.
Not long ago I read in the paper
That a gal on the East Side got "hot,"
And when the smoke finally retreated,
Two of gangdom were found "on the spot."
It related the colorful story
Of a "jilted gangster gal."
Two days later, a "sub-gun" ended
The story of "Suicide Sal."
Trail's End (The Story of Bonnie and Clyde) by Bonnie Parker
You've read the story of Jesse James-
Of how he lived and died;
If you're still in need
Of something to read
Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.
Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang.
I'm sure you all have read
How they rob and steal
And those who squeal
Are usually found dying or dead.
There's lots of untruths to these write-ups;
They're not so ruthless as that;
Their nature is raw;
They hate the law--
The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.
They call them cold-blooded killers;
They say they are heartless and mean;
But I say this with pride,
That I once knew Clyde
When he was honest and upright and clean.
But the laws fooled around,
Kept taking him down
And locking him up in a cell,
Till he said to me,
"I'll never be free,
So I'll meet a few of them in hell."
The road was so dimly lighted;
There were no highway signs to guide;
But they made up their minds
If all roads were blind,
They wouldn't give up till they died.
The road gets dimmer and dimmer;
Sometimes you can hardly see;
But it's fight, man to man,
And do all you can,
For they know they can never be free.
From heart-break some people have suffered;
From weariness some people have died;
But take it all in all,
Our troubles are small
Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.
If a policeman is killed in Dallas,
And they have no clue or guide;
If they can't find a fiend,
They just wipe their slate clean
And hang it on Bonnie and Clyde.
There's two crimes committed in America
Not accredited to the Barrow mob;
They had no hand
In the kidnap demand,
Nor the Kansas City Depot job.
A newsboy once said to his buddy:
"I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
In these awful hard times
We'd make a few dimes
If five or six cops would get bumped."
The police haven't got the report yet,
But Clyde called me up today;
He said, "Don't start any fights--
We aren't working nights--
We're joining the NRA."
From Irving to West Dallas viaduct
Is known as the Great Divide,
Where the women are kin,
And the men are men,
And they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.
If they try to act like citizens
And rent them a nice little flat,
About the third night
They're invited to fight
By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.
They don't think they're too smart or desperate,
They know that the law always wins;
They've been shot at before,
But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.
Some day they'll go down together;
They'll bury them side by side;
To few it'll be grief-
To the law a relief-
But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.
Lists for the future
1920's
Al'Scarface' Capone
Lucky Luciano
Bugs Moran
Dutch Schultz
1930's
Pretty Boy Floyd
Baby Faced Nelson
John Dilinger
Ma Barker
Alvin Kerpis
John 'Red' Hamilton
Homer Van Meter
Tommy Carroll
EddieGreen
Vincent 'Maddog' Coll
Frank 'Jelly' Nash
Jack Rabbit
Books
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn
My Life with Bonnie and Clyde by Esther L. Weiser, B.C. Barrow, and John Neal Phillips
The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Phillip Steele and Marie Barrow Scoma
Bonnie and Clyde: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies) by Nate Hendley
On the Trail of Bonnie and Clyde Then and Now by Winston G. Ramsey
Running with Bonnie and Clyde: The Ten Fast Years of Ralph Fults by John Neal Phillips
The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, by John Treherne
Bonnie and Clyde by Sandra Wake and Nicola Hayden
Bonnie and Clyde: A Love Story by Bill Brooks
Bonnie and Clyde: A Twenty-First-Century Update by James R. Knight and Jonathan Davis
Doodles and canvas
A few doodles and such... and i realised while doing these thumbnails that i kept falling into the trap of making the characters look too "cool", i dont want them to look like they're having the time of their lives, they should like a pair of worn-out criminals. (Harder than it looks actually.)
'Bonnie and Clyde's Death'; planning on doing this improved version in gouache on this bit of old canvas i dug out. (Oh and er... the Florence street scene won't be included.)
Bonnie and Clyde on tape
Chilling video i found two days ago showing the death scene shortly after Bonnie and Clyde were shot to pieces. A little shocked and fascinated that this is around at all!
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
The Life, Times and Death of Bonnie and Clyde
The Public Enemy
"The term public enemy was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society." wikipedia
"Public enemy is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society. The term was first popularized in April 1930 by Frank J. Loesch, then chairman of the Chicago Crime Commission, in an attempt to publicly denounce Al Capone and other Chicago gangsters.
It was later appropriated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI who used it to describe various notorious fugitives that they were pursuing throughout the 1930s. Among the criminals whom the FBI called "Public Enemies" were John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, and Alvin Karpis.
The term was used so extensively during the 1930s that some writers call that period of the FBI's early history the 'Public Enemy Era.'" wikipedia
I think it was probably watching Bugsy Malone when i was just a kid that provoked this interest in the bootlegger, the bank robber and the gangster of the Great Depression. Added to the fact that so many of these criminals' stories have been turned into, or are the basis for many of todays films, music, comics (not to mention the development of what we now know to be the FBI) etc. its so easy to be intrigued in the fast life and wild times of the 1930's law-breaker. Those black and white movies with their flickering reels, smokey theatres, men in shadows in spats and heavy-eyed femme fatale's had me hooked from the start. And now I find myself wanting to know the truth behind many of these people. The stories, newspaper headlines and urban legends that followed them. The life they led before they were romanticised and blasted onto the silver screen. I'll annotate this new knowledge, process it, draw my own conclusions and intend to use this dormant avenue of interest to inform my visual work from here on in.
Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde 1967
Sat down to watch the 1967 Arthur Penn version of Bonnie and Clyde with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway last night.
My previous suspicions confirmed, i reached the end of the film feeling like i'd been lied to and had meanwhile been distracted by the shiny cars, Beatty's texas charms and Dunaway's crimson lips. And cheated too, because not only were most of the significant scenes altered (if not totally plucked out of thin air) but the characters were just that. Pawns in a lovely movie which sold this story as a fairy-tale ,without the happy ending, that you could probably sum up on the back of a postcard.
It is a great film, beautiful to look at too by all means, but it's just made so much less enjoyable knowing the real story was so very much more.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Finding Bonnie & Clyde
Ironically, it has to be said, the thing that occupied my mind the most whilst waiting to report a stolen handbag recently, was an article in a three month old spanish magazine. The several paged feature told the real story (or at least as close to real as it could be) of Bonnie and Clyde.
What i found most remarkable, wasn't that Hollywood had once again managed to glamourise the story of two of America's most sought after criminals, wanted for bank robberies, car theft and the murder of a dozen federal officers - but rather that the truth behind the lives of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow far surpassed the brutality that any tinsel-town film has ever portrayed before. And although off course filmmaking in the sixties still involved restrictions in scenes of a sexual or violent nature and more delicate social issues, the last of the Bonnie and Clyde films released in 1967 still demonstrates this incredibly watered down almost, dare i say, laughable story. It seems to me that in actual fact a more accurate portrayal of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrows lives would have made for a far better and darker love story than Hollywood delivered.