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100 BEFORE YOURE OUT

A thrilling end to the list

BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)

DIRECTORArthur Penn

STARRING Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman

TIME 130 minutes

Iwonder if it is an exaggeration to say that most of the violence you see on screen today can be

traced back to Bonnie and Clyde. Arthur Penn's story about two bank robbers who got famouskilling people during the early Depression years, was savage, shocking and tragic (the film's

tagline said: They're young. They are in love. And they kill people). Of course Bonnie and Clyde

were going to die but the climactic, slow-motion dance of death in which the two are riddledwith bullets, was both horrific and seductive. Film critic David Thomson called the ending

'orgasmic.' He wrote: Had there ever been a moment in which the equation of sex and violencewas so emphatic or transporting?

Bonnie and Clyde is widely credited with bringing a European sensibility to American cinema(in fact the film was first pitched to Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Goddard). But its graphic

violence, subversive shifts of mood and pitiless tone was bewildering for studio bosses and some

film critics Bosley Crowther, the influential critic of The New York Times described the filmas 'a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy.' But eventually Bonnie and Clyde found its

audience and its rightful place in film history (it also won 10 Oscar nominations). A few months

after the film's release, Crowther was retired from the paper. TEESRI MANZIL (1966)

DIRECTORVijay Anand

STARRING Shammi Kapoor, Asha Parekh, Helen

TIME 172 minutesTeesri Manzil is one of Hindi cinema's most crackling thrillers. Even before the titles are over,

a girl is dead fallen or pushed from the third floor and potential murderers and motives have

been introduced. But before we find out 'whodunit,' we get romance, comedy and some of the

most sparkling set-piece song sequences ever put on film. Has anything ever matched up toHelen gyrating in the iris of a giant eye in O haseena zulfonwali or the synchronised shaking of

bee-hive hair-dos in Aaja Aaja.

The story by Nasir Hussain takes some convoluted detours do ignore the business about theheroine, Sunita played by Asha Parekh, trying to avenge her sister's death by luring the main

suspect, a drummer named Rocky, into the mountains and then having a girl's hockey team beat

him. But even when the plot becomes silly, R. D Burman's superb soundtrack smoothens the

ride. And then there's the irresistible Shammi Kapoor, in all his hip-swiveling, Elvis Presley-glory. Few thrillers are this much fun on the sidelines, you might also notice the handsome,

young Salim Khan who gave acting a shot before picking up the pen.

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ANUPAMA CHOPRA