Jack Warner held the rights to a film he found repulsive and wanted to bury, and the most powerful critic of the era agreed with him enough to launch a multi-column crusade against it. That film was Bonnie and Clyde, which went on to shatter cinematic taboos around violence and become a defining masterpiece of the New Hollywood era. This episode follows the chaotic making of the 1967 film, from a script written by admirers of the French New Wave to a release that sparked a civil war among critics.

The conversation covers the French director who wanted to shoot Texas in New Jersey in January, Warren Beatty buying the rights in Paris, Arthur Penn's repeated refusals, and casting that included Gene Wilder's screen debut and a Texas schoolteacher pulled from a crowd. It examines Penn's decision to remove the polyamorous relationship from the sc ...