The car that the real Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow met their fate in is on display (along with Barrow's bullet-riddled shirt) in Primm Valley Hotel and Casino in Primm, NV, 20 miles outside of Las Vegas near the California border. The prop car used in the film was displayed as part of a "Bonnie and Clyde" diorama at Planet Hollywood Dallas, in Dallas, TX. The Planet Hollywood in Dallas closed in 2001 and the car is now owned by a private collector.
The characters Eugene Grizzard and Velma Davis (played by Gene Wilder and Evans Evans) are based on Dillard Darby and Sophia Stone of Ruston, Louisiana. On the night of April 27, 1933, Darby and Stone were briefly kidnapped by the Barrow gang, who had stolen Darby's car. After driving around Ruston for several hours, Darby and Stone were released unharmed. During the drive, when Darby mentioned that he was an undertaker, Bonnie Parker remarked, "Well, maybe you'll work on me someday." A year later, Darby did just that. He was one of the undertakers who worked on Bonnie Parker's body after she and Clyde Barrow were killed in the roadside ambush near Gibsland, Louisiana, in May, 1934.
The ending of the film was quite romanticized in comparison to the real-life couple's death. In the film, Clyde stops his car on a country road to help a friend change a flat tire. Once they realize the friend has set them up, the bank-robbing duo look at each other lovingly, and make a desperate attempt to be in each other's arms once more before being cut down by machine-gun fire. In reality, Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed just outside Gibsland, Louisiana, on May 23, 1934. They did not get out of their car, which was raked by 187 shells. Clyde had been driving in his socks, and Bonnie had a sandwich in her mouth.
The family gathering scene was filmed in Red Oak, Texas. Several local residents were watching the film being shot, when the filmmakers noticed Mabel Cavitt, a local school teacher, among the people gathered. She was chosen then and there to play Bonnie Parker's mother.
The film has a dynamic soundtrack that gets much louder during the gunfights. The British premiere of the film was notable because the projectionist previewed the film and thought the volume changes were a mistake, so he made careful notes for when to turn it up and when to turn it down so that the volume was "corrected."
The final moment of the field shoot out in which the posse surrounds a dying Buck and a hysterical Blanche is based on the rare "action" photo taken of that moment. In actuality, Blanche was screaming at an officer who had his foot on Buck's wounded head and a gun to his face threatening to shoot him again. She was begging him not to shoot him again because he was already dying.
The first choice for director, François Truffaut, expressed a keen interest in the project and may have even been involved in the development of the screenplay. However, before filming could begin, the opportunity arose for Truffaut to make Fahrenheit 451, a long-cherished project of his, and he dropped out to make that film instead.
The infamous climactic shoot-out was filmed with four different cameras, all running at different speeds. The scene itself lasts 54 seconds.
The movie that Bonnie and Clyde go to see after their botched bank robbery when C.W. Moss parallel parked their get away car was Gold Diggers of 1933.
The movie's line "We rob banks." was voted as the #41 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
The poem that Bonnie is reading as the police open fire on the rented flat is "The Story of Suicide Sal" written by Bonnie Parker in 1932.
The real Blanche Barrow sued Warner Brothers over the way she was depicted in the film. In reality, Barrow was the same age as Bonnie Parker, arguably better looking than her, she was not a preacher's daughter and had married Buck knowing full well that he was an escaped prisoner and twice divorced.
The scene in which C.W. Moss parallel parks the getaway car while Clyde and Bonnie are in the bank, and then has trouble getting the car out of the space, is based on a true event, but it didn't happen to Bonnie and Clyde. It occurred on June 10, 1933; the bank robbers in question were John Dillinger and William Shaw, and the driver was Paul "Lefty" Parker. This is documented in Bryan Burrough's "Public Enemies: American's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34", upon which the film Public Enemies was based.
The story of Bonnie Parker smoking a cigar in a picture is accurate. She did it as a joke. But after the shootout at the bungalow in Joplin, MO, police found the photos the gang had taken and published the photo of Bonnie, thereby leading to her unearned rep as a "Cigar Smokin' Gun Moll".
Thousand of berets were sold worldwide after Faye Dunaway wore them in this film.
Unusually for such a graphic and violent film, Arthur Penn intended it to be partly comic, almost like a send-up of the 1930s era gangster films.
Veteran cinematographer Burnett Guffey - an Oscar-winner From Here to Eternity - had frequent arguments with Arthur Penn over his radical shooting style. Ironically Guffey went on to win another Oscar for his work on Bonnie and Clyde.
Warner Bros. gave the movie a limited, "B" movie-type release at first, sending it to drive-ins and lesser theaters. When critics began raving about the film and young people began to show up at screenings, it was better promoted, given a wider release and became a huge hit.
Warner Brothers had so little faith in the film that, in an unprecedented move, it offered its first-time producer Warren Beatty 40% of the gross instead of a minimal fee. The movie then went on to gross over $50 million.
When Warren Beatty was on board as producer only, his sister Shirley MacLaine was a strong possibility to play Bonnie. But when Beatty decided to play Clyde himself, for obvious reasons he decided not use MacLaine.