Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, whose brutal crime spree came to an end in 1934. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.

Bonnie Parker (1910–1934) and Clyde

Barrow (1909–1934) are probably the best-known criminal duo of the 1930s. In their brief career of armed robberies, Parker and Barrow traveled around the Southwest and Midwest, murdering a total of between twelve and fifteen people. Newspaper reports of the time exaggerated their crimes, linking them to holdups they could not have committed.

In 1967, Arthur Penn (1922–) directed the hit film Bonnie and Clyde, remodeling the pair into folk heroes. The bleak violence of the film made sense to Americans coming to terms with student protests, the war in Vietnam (1954–75), and rising crime. Although it portrays Parker and Barrow as victims of their desperate times, the film is realistic about the brutality of their crimes. They were shot to death by...