David Newman, the screenwriter who collaborated with the director Robert Benton on the groundbreaking crime-spree movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” died Friday in New York City. He was 66.
The cause was a stroke, said Bobby Zarem, a family friend.
When “Bonnie and Clyde” opened in August 1967, some reviewers were shocked by the seemingly farcical treatment of the two Depression-era bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker–played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway–as well as by the movie’s violence and revved-up background music by the bluegrass team of Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt.
Writing in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther called it “a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cut-ups in `Thoroughly Modern Millie.”‘
Viewers disagreed, forming long lines at theaters and writing letters to say its violence accurately reflected American culture during the Depression and the Vietnam eras.
Mr. Newman collaborated with Benton on “There Was a Crooked Man” (1970) and with Benton, Peter Bogdanovich and Buck Henry on “What’s Up, Doc?” (1972). Mr. Newman and his wife, Leslie, wrote the Superman trilogy, sharing credit with others including Mario Puzo.
