The Movies

There are two notable movies that tell the story of Bonnie & Clyde and the ambush that killed them (there are others, but these seem to be the best). The first is the 1967 classic, Bonnie and Clyde, with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the title roles. The second is a well-regarded 2019 Netflix piece called The Highwaymen, starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson. I have seen the first, but only clips of the second. Because I love 1970’s classics, and I don’t do Netflix.

The Beatty and Dunaway movie focuses on Bonnie & Clyde. The Highwaymen focuses more on the 6-man posse that killed them. The most well known lawman was Frank Hamer, a former Texas Ranger. Maney Gault was Hamer’s partner, another former Texas Ranger. The other Texas officers were Ted Hinton and Robert Alcorn. There were two Louisiana lawmen – Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan and Deputy Prentiss Oakley.

As sheriff, Jordan was nominally in command, but Frank Hamer was the most experienced gunfighter. In his career, he engaged in 74 gunfights, and was involved in the deaths of 55 badmen and one woman.

Both movies are well done, but neither is a documentary. Translation: enjoy them, but expect inaccuracies. In this article, we’ll look at the guns used by the posse to kill Bonnie & Clyde. The outlaws had an arsenal of their own on their persons and in their car. We’ll leave those for another discussion.

 

M1921 Thompson Submachine Gun in .45 ACP with drum magazine

The Thompson submachine gun with a drum magazine has become the iconic “Chicago Typewriter” favored by prohibition-era gangsters (See Figure 2). Hollywood knows this, so you can’t make a Hollywood gangster movie about the 1930’s and not feature at least one Thompson.

In the Beatty and Dunaway movie, the couple is lit up by a posse armed with Thompsons. In fact, Thompsons were not present at the ambush. Lawmen had come to avoid using Thompsons because the submachine guns used .45 ACP pistol cartridges. Such rounds could not be counted on to penetrate the sheet metal sides of the period’s cars. This led to the FBI and police preference for Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs) that fired .30-06 ammunition that would blow through one side and out the other.

I must say that the Thompson with a 20-round box magazine is heavy. Not something you want to carry all day, along with spare ammo. I can only imagine what the Thompson weighs with a 50-round C drum or 100-round L drum. The gangsters were probably grateful to have cars to drive around in.