March 11 (Bloomberg) -- In the 1967 movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” the Depression-era outlaws were portrayed by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as a tall, glamorous couple who robbed banks and traveled in style.

In reality, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were short, bumbling thieves who spent most of their time together sleeping in stolen cars and cheap motels while trying not to be captured by equally inept lawmen.

Jeff Guinn effectively separates fact from fiction in “Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde,” an exhaustively researched, crisply written biography of one of the most notorious criminal duos in U.S. history. After reading the book, I wanted to recast the movie with Dustin Hoffman and Christina Ricci.

Though they were national celebrities in the early 1930s, along with fellow gangsters John Dillinger and “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde had largely been forgotten by the 1960s, when their legend was revived and embellished by Arthur Penn’s Oscar-winning film. Lost in translation was the real, gritty saga of two dirt-poor Texans who escaped dreary, dead-end lives by embarking on a murderous, two-year crime spree throughout the Southwest, Great Plains and Midwest.

Bloody Ambush

Their fatal attraction ended on May 23, 1934, on a country road in Louisiana, where they were ambushed by a posse of pursuers tipped off to their whereabouts by the father of one of their own Barrow Gang members. They died in a barrage of gunfire, a moment that Penn depicted in horrifying slow motion and bloody detail.

It was one of the few accurate scenes in the movie, which spiced up the story with composite characters, invented dialogue and a speculative subplot about Clyde’s impotency.

“‘Bonnie and Clyde’ emphasized fancy clothes and gory gunplay, but didn’t touch on the mundane, routine Barrow Gang misery of camping in cars and dining on cans of cold beans,” writes Guinn, a former book editor at the Fort Worth Star- Telegram.

Guinn’s vivid descriptions of the West Dallas slum that produced Bonnie and Clyde -- it was a filthy, polluted area crammed with shanties and tents -- makes us understand their desperation to get out by whatever means necessary.

Family Ties

In addition to chronicling their numerous crimes, from breaking into gum machines to killing police officers, Guinn spends considerable time fleshing out Bonnie’s and Clyde’s unusually close relationships with their families, which led the couple to continually return to West Dallas despite the imminent threat of arrest or death. (Clyde’s older brother Buck and his wife, Blanche, were part of the gang until Buck was gunned down and Blanche was captured in 1933.)

Clyde and Bonnie -- Guinn always refers to them that way, instead of the movie-title sequence, to reflect their pecking order in the gang -- both had dual personalities.

Clyde could be a ruthless killer when cornered, but he also treated hostages with kindness, showered relatives with gifts and gave cash to strangers. While Bonnie wrote poetry and nursed the injured, she looked the other way when Clyde killed in cold blood and posed for a picture holding a pistol and chomping on a cigar. (Bonnie actually didn’t smoke stogies, and was offended when newspapers described her as a cigar smoker.)

Clyde’s Limp

Perhaps that’s why Guinn, whose research included access to unpublished manuscripts by Clyde’s mother and one of Clyde’s sisters, can’t seem to make up his mind whether Bonnie and Clyde were victims of circumstance, selfish hoodlums or a little bit of both.

The book contains at least one glaring error: Guinn’s claim that Beatty doesn’t limp in the movie, as Clyde did after he cut off two of his toes to get removed from a brutal work assignment in prison. Beatty not only limps, but there’s even an early scene where he offers to show Bonnie his mangled foot.

“Go Down Together” is published by Simon & Schuster (467 pages, $27).

(Rick Warner is the movie critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Rick Warner in New York at rwarner1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 11, 2009 00:01 EDT