1930's Crime Comes to Television

The cable television airwaves is experiencing a flood of mini-series about crime from the 1930's.

The first such "limited series" is TNT's "Mob City".

Commercials for this flooded the TBS air during the baseball playoffs and created interest, for me at least, in watching.  This story takes place in depression-era Los Angeles and features such real people as LA police legend William Parker, and mobsters Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel.  I caught the first two hour installment last week and am no doubt on the hook for the subsequent episodes over the next two Wednesday evenings.  The show is stylishly done with great costuming and period details, but I get the feeling as I watch that this is a story we have already seen before.  And as Bugsy Siegel goes, Ed Burns is no Warren Beatty.

The second such show is a four hour, two night remake of "Bonnie and Clyde" showing on three different cable networks.  Part One was on last night and it will conclude tonight.  This one stars in the title roles to unknowns (to me) named Holliday Grainger and Emile Hirsch.

They are attractive enough and seem to do okay in the roles, but it's hard not to keep picturing these two as you watch:

(Hey, Warren Beatty again!  What's next? A remake of "Shampoo"?)

This also brings to mind a question often raised, "Why remake a classic?"  I suppose the easiest answer is "to make a buck", but it can raise emotions, admittedly irrational at times, in  fans of certain movies when someone dares to remake one of their favorite movies. Sometimes it works ("True Grit"), sometimes it bombs ("Psycho"), and most times it produces stuff that is pretty much unmemorable.  I suspect that the 2013 "Bonnie and Clyde" will be pretty much forgotten before too much time passes while  future generations will continue to watch and enjoy the 1967 Beatty-Dunaway movie.  Hey, if this TV version does nothing but drive younger viewers to seek out and watch that '67 movie, then it will have served a good purpose.

The producers of the current B&C have thrown a bone to us, ahem, older viewers by casting Holly Hunter and William Hurt in this one.  Hunter plays Bonnie's mother, and Hurt plays the Texas Rangers who eventually hunts down Bonnie and Clyde.  He was introduced last night, but will have a much larger role in tonight's finale, I suspect.