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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Student's Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 3. March 19 1968

[Film Reviews]

page 10

A Word of comfort for those who think Bonnie and Clyde "panders to the adolescent sadism of audiences" (as one person put it), is immoral, technically inefficient, or "just an ordinary film"—be of good cheer!

You have a champion in Page Cook, whose review is reprinted below, writing in that repository of reactionary film criticism Films in Review. What is interesting about this piece apart from distortions of fact (e.g. what the camera dwells on) is the outraged tone of the writing.

Many critics of this brand don't just dislike the film—they resent it. They resent the popularity of Bonnie and Clyde—its impact on today's audiences and, no doubt, themselves. Rather like Wagner's music the film impinges on areas of the psyche normally free from unwelcome intrusion.

Films, especially the Hollywood type, are not supposed to have this effect on people.

As Pauline Kael has pointed out Bonnie and Clyde is the most American American film since The Manchurian Candidate and like the earlier film is one of the major works of the '60s.