“One big reason Bonnie and Clyde seemed exciting then and still seems contemporary fifty years later is that it was made in between two regimes of self-censorship — the old Production Code, which dated from 1930, and the ratings system (G, PG, R, and X), which went into effect in 1968.
“In 1967, you could make a movie without worrying much about the approval of the Motion Picture Association of America, an advantage long enjoyed by European movies. (Bonnie and Clyde still had to be screened for the Catholic Legion of Decency.) This meant that you could do more with sex and violence, which was perfect for a crime-couple genre picture.
“Originally, the screenwriters intended to portray a ménage-a-trois involving Clyde, Bonnie, and the character C. W. Moss, played by Michael J. Pollard. Beatty [allegedly] refused. But the movie opens with Dunaway lying naked on a bed, includes action that implies fellatio, and ends with the camera lingering on two bullet-ridden bodies. In between, Dunaway strokes Beatty’s pistol and does suggestive things with a Coke bottle, the bank manager is shot through the eye, and a blinded Estelle Parsons screams hysterically as the police open fire on the gang.
“Two years earlier, the movie would not have been approved by the M.P.A.A. Two years later, it would have been rated X. It found a historical sweet spot. — “Bonnie and Clyde, Fifty Years After,” by Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 8.14.17.
Okay, make that 55 years.