Pretty good. I'd give it 4 out of 5. If you're looking for non-stop action, this ain't your thing. The shootout is anti-climatic. It's more of a character study/history type thing without being anything like a documentary. It's not Hatfields and McCoys. The thing that jumped out at me was how subdued and gentlemanly Hamer and his sidekick were. Probably pretty realistic.

Planning to watch it tonight.

Completely, TOTALLY off topic...but I gotta ask about your avatar. I'm thinking that's a famous golfer and that I should be able to remember the name, but damned if I can and it's driving me nuts. Help me out!

I'm about half way through it right now.

I thought it was good, watched it this morning.

Y’all talking about the original or a new version?

It's a pic of myself. I don't know if I'm famous for golfing.

Original? This is a new Netflix movie with Keven Costner and Woody Harrelson. It's about Frank Hamer's pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde. It all focuses on Law Enforcement and nothing on Bonnie and Clyde. They're just faceless killers that need to be put down like mad dogs according to the government. It does show how they are heroes to the people. I wonder if Hamer's family was okay with his portrayal. In the movie, Hamer is not portrayed as a cold blooded killer, but lots of people seem to view him that way in it.

The movie Happy Gilmore could have been about me, but then I don't play hockey neither.

Costner gave a better performance than I expected.

Acting looks pretty hokey on the coming attractions.

It wasn't bad. Costner was better than usual. Woody Harrelson played himself.

Kathy Bates portraying the Governor was pretty good. I thought she played a scumbag politician accurately.

It's really more a refutation of the "old men are dangerous" mindset prevalent on the 'fire. The older I get the less dangerous I feel and I think that's pretty accurate and a realistic assessment for most guys. These two could barely get her done anymore and in that way, I think it was a pretty good movie.

Yep we watched it as a family last night same thing stood out to me.

His trip to the gun store was like a dream to me literally.

That BAR...

I think it was on DeFlave's thread about this show coming out...I argued that there wouldn't be many gunstores with those type guns around. I get your dream, but as far as the movie was concerned, I think it was highly unrealistic and may have been an anti-gun thing. They did talk about how Bonnie and Clyde got their own military guns from an arsenal. I expect that Hamer got his the same way.

Good movie. Wife enjoyed it too. Thankfully, there were no lesbian/gay scenes to endure as we had been typically seeing out of Hollywood/Netflix for the "righting" of historical events.

I thought it did a good job of showing the popular support for B&C and the common people's discontent/disgust with banksters/politicians for getting them into the depression. Too, a look behind the scenes at political motivation, as the governor thought only of her "optics" for the end result.

My question is this and I am not any kind of a historian--had believed the killing of B&C was more of a thought out roll-by rather than a complete stop?

I worked all morning in the yard and fell asleep halfway thru watching it in the afternoon I am going to rewatch it today, I liked what I saw.

I gotcha that makes sense I hadn’t thought of it that way.

Who knows what a gun store in Texas in that time period had in inventory.

Were feral hogs a problem in TX at that time? Some of those guns might have been useful.

Feral hogs have been prominent in Texas for many many years but the numbers used to be managed by folks hunting and trapping them to feed their families. While many still eat them it's more of a depredation thing these days and as such there numbers have exploded.

Kaywoodie

I guess my mind is just screwing with me. Way too much data on the old hard drive...and I think I may have a bad sector or some missing .dll files. Maybe a defrag with some Jose Cuervo will fix me up.

I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't an action movie like you'd think. It was two old retired guys getting together for one final ride. I expect it was about as accurate a portrayal of an actual event as one would ever see.

I particularly liked the radio news casts. Nothing but facts. I wash we could still get that today.

The great depression was a rough time for many.

No problem. I used to get mistaken for famous actors all the time. It's a first to get mistaken for a golfer, so that's pretty good.

I'm more likely to get mistaken for the guy playing Hamer's boss now...

Ethan:

About the Hamer family the local paper here had a couple stories on it and how the writer and director had met several times with Frank Hamer jr and got his blessing in the script.

As to a small town gunstore having all that, if I remember right Hamer mail ordered some and borrowed some more from a national guard armory. There’s an article somewhere in the net (Jim Wilson’s) site maybe about him actually ran penetration tests before starting out and carried a .38 super rather than his saa old lucky and going to a larger caliber rifle as they did a better job of penetrating a ford door

That's pretty cool. If I'm ever in San Antonio again, I'm gonna look up where Col. Askins' "compound" was. Off-topic, but still...

I wonder in real life if anyone disrespected Capt'n Hamer like was portrayed in this movie. A celebrated Texas Ranger of his reputation doesn't seem like someone that would get disrespected or tolerate it either.

What I liked about the movie is that it showed Bonnie and Clyde for who they were, cold blooded killers. I was thinking what would be the reaction today if law enforcement took someone out the way they did it? But with the number of law enforcement officers that were killed by Bonnie and Clyde that was the best way to take them out.

I started a thread about that:
https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...1887/re-more-the-highwaymen#Post13641887

The article I referenced is about a year old, but it was new to me. It was a bit long, but I thought a worthwhile read.

Still amazing how many people of the day turned out for the little rat mugs funerals.

Askins compound was about a mile up the road from my Inlaws house. Drove by it a couple times to check it out. They subdivided the land so it’s a big White House surrounded by a subdivision. Believe some geanealogical society owns it now. It’s off blanco road about 1 mile outside the 410 loop near the airport

Thanks for the info!

Watched it last night. Thought it was quite good.

Costner and Harrelson played, well, Costner and Harrelson. Good casting.
Was a neat look back at America in many ways.

Good flick. Just watched it. Ed k

Thanks EE. I’ll have to check it out!

I really enjoyed it... less Hollywood that many 'action' movies of today...

as far as the Depression being a rough time...

I recall my Granddad saying that in his county in Southern West Virginia, the only reason they even heard there was a depression going on, was from a few news papers that filtered into the local area... and what they heard on the few people that owned a radio, and lived high enough on a mountain top to get any reception....

He'd tell us when we were kids, during the depression in the local economy ( If they really even had one).... that pretty much every body had NO MORE or No Less than they did, before the "depression" or after the Depression...

communication wise, World War 2, probably did more to bring Monroe County WVa into , or at least closer to the real world....

people had a roof over their heads and most folks, grew their own food, and it fed the family, but little else...

My grandmother's family was a little better off than most, but she wore shoes to school only two times from the first to the last day.... first time was the first day of first grade, and she was ridiculed by all the other kids, because their family couldn't afford shoes for their kids... the second time was when she graduated high school, because it was requested by her dad....

we might call it poverty today... but no one had any more or less than about everybody else... and those in need, were usually helped out by others at their local mountain church....or friends, neighbors and relatives...
as my grand parents said.. "We didn't know we were poor.... because so was everybody else"

https://deadline.com/2018/02/john-f...paul-newman-john-lee-hancock-1202286500/

My grandparents lost their farm during the depression. They had good crops in the barn but there was no money in circulation so they couldn't sell them for cash. They could only barter. For the lack of $200 to pay the mortgage, they lost it.

I don't know who was ultimately responsible for the lack of cash, but a lot of people blamed the banks. B&C actually mostly robbed small stores and gas stations but they did hit several banks and got a false reputation for being bank robbers. That got them the support of the people.

Wifey and I watched it last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. Thought it was interesting that they used the actual road/location to film the shootout. The road is paved now and they had to truck in a gazillion loads of dirt to cover the asphalt. The actual location of the ambush is only about 15 or so miles off I-20, east of Shreveport.

I’ve seen the actual car they were killed in and was able to look inside it. It was said both of them were hit over 50 times each. I believe it.

My memory is vague but I think that stretch of the present road is about 1/4 mile from the actual site of the shooting.

Watched it last night with my wife. She usually doesn't like movies with a lot of violence but she did this. It was well made.

Costner has a pretty good body of work. I'm not surprised that it's watchable.

Woody is always tolerable as Woody.

Watched it yesterday. Very slow movie.

My father's parents lived in Nashville during the depression. They said they about starved to death.

My wife's grandparents live on a farm in rural Macon County. Her grandmother said she heard something about a recession on the radio, but didn't really have any idea what they were talking about. Things there were just as they'd always been.

Oh I'm sure....the actual site has a pull off for parking if I remember correctly and a stone marker.

Just watched it, now my wife is watching it again - from the beginning - she missed the first part.
Costner and Harrelson do an excellent job; film does not glamourize the gangsters.

Different times, different values: great movie!

It has 2 scenes with Bonnie walking up and shooting cops on the ground. Some historians say that there's no record of her actually shooting at anyone. She often carried a gun but they say that no one ever saw her shoot one.

The scene showing them crossing Red River into Oklahoma was actually filmed on an abandoned bridge across the Brazos about twenty miles from where I’m sitting as I type this, here in Young County.

I consider it as a tribute to their attempt at authenticity to go to that much trouble for what was a minor scene.

I liked the movie even though, as usual, most of the actors couldn’t get their accent right.... especially the guy playing Clyde Barrow’s father.

TheRealHawkeye: I disagree with your prediction - both the VarmintWife and I thought it was well acted, well photographed, realistic, entertaining and very much worth watching - I will indeed watch it again this coming week.
I highly recommend the "movie"!
Would liked to have seen it on the big screen but just not possible here in SW Montana.
LOVED all the cool guns!
Even though, I am sure, 90% of the actors, directors, film crew workers and writers were/are "liberals" - they did a great job making this great historically based (correct!) movie.
And for that I give them accolades.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

lapua6547: I have to ask, in reference to your disdain of the pace of this movie, are you the type that enjoys the crude and boring non-stop computer generated shoot-out, building crushing, earth-exploding flying superhero hero gibberish movies?
Let me advise you as a 29 (twenty nine!) year veteran of law enforcement that a typical day/week/month/year/career in law enforcement is NOT non-stop action!
The periods in between terrifying and unusual incidents is often slow paced - but never the less interesting and worthwhile.
I thought the Highwaymen was an absolute success of a movie with great acting, great writing, great filming and a wonderfully told interesting story - I'll double check my contention/opinion when I watch this movie again next week.
I only wish I had a larger T.V. screen (current model is 65"!). My neighbor has a home theater and I'll get to him and "invite" myself to watch it on his big screen when he returns from Arizona.
Again "I" highly recommend this movie.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Akin to getting chickish on someone that don't like the same food as you. About par though, you got that going on.

In a previous job, I dealt with a guy over in Minden, LA. He told me they towed their car on a trailer through town (not sure exactly which town, may have been Minden) with the bodies still in it. Said his Dad was a kid at the time and jumped up on the trailer and looked at the car and inside. Pretty rough.

He told me this story about 10 years ago and it's given me a fascination for that and events leading up to it. Guess I'll have to watch it.......

I liked the movie a lot. tough, understated protagonists. real depression. real guns. interaction between Hamer and Barrow Sr. was good even if not historical. real politics.

Damn lucky none of the good guys got shot in a melee like that.

And at the end, the realization of what media and celebrity can add up to.

I am surprised this movie was so good.

I wish somebody could have predicted.

I would have watched sooner.

My adopted grandfather and his brother had a gunshop/ sporting goods/radio shop in Austin Texas on 6th st. That Hamer frequented. They were good friends. Petmecky’s guns and sporting goods eas around the corner on Congress Ave.

As far as what kinda guns I know that they had 94 Win Carbines and Win Model 12’s for rental guns. Grandpa Marvin said they inventoried 75, 94’s in 30-30 out at $12 each when he sold the business in 1946. They sold lots of the usual sporting rifles and shotguns of the day. He personally did not like Savage 99’s and Win model 24 shotguns. 😊. He never mentioned them selling Colt Monitors or Thompsons. Or such guns. They also had a store policy when purchasing a used firearm. They would never give more that half the retail price of the new gun. And that would have been top dollar for a clean like new model.

in the movie, Hamer had a catalog, with what he wanted circled.

doubt if that store supported it's own catalog.

not sure about that detail.

i never saw him order a remington 8 , but seemed like he had one in the movie, and I didn't see the 15 round police magazine either.

IIRC - from reading a recent biography of Hamer - https://www.tbr.txstate.edu/archives/fall-2016/texas-ranger.html

The Remington - in .25 Remington - was his personal weapon and he'd owned it for years by then.

My grandparents had land and a farm. They had just sold their crops and put the money in the bank($300). Day or so later the banks closed , they lost the money and couldn't pay the morgage, lost their land. For the next fifteen years they were sharecroppers. They hated banks for the rest of their lives.

Book, Texas Ranger. All about Frank. Been quite a while since I read it and don't remember a lot. Movie was probably based on the book?

Saw an M-1 carbine in the mix at the end. I don't think they were produced in 1934.

Go Back and look ok again. Bet is was a 1907 Win. Self loading rifle.

It was pretty good. They overplayed the “old man” thing. Hamer was just a month or two past 50 when they got Bonnie and Clyde. He wasn’t really retired either. He and bunch of others had quit the Rangers fairly recently in protest of Ma Ferguson.

Go to the dead cops in Grapevine scene. Look at those metal fence posts and how tight that fence was. I’m pretty sure those posts would have been locust or bois d’arc in 1933 and that fence wouldn’t been that tight. And of course, there was the standard movie trope where Bonnie racked the action on a Remington Model 11.

If you were in your 50's in the 1930's you were an old man.

Any place you can see it besides Netflix???

Col Askins house is now HQ for the San Antonio Geneological and Historical Society. Before they got it, it was briefly used as a church.

The Colonel's son, Bill, lives in San Antonio, sells real estate and airplanes. He has an impressive estate in the North SA area and didn't need his Dad's house. It was too much house for his sister, so they sold it.

The Col. bought it, didn't build it. Back then is was in a relatively rural area, they rode ther horses around the neighborhood. It's no longer rural...


https://txsaghs.org/about.php

DF

Except that he was in his 40s for most of the time covered in the movie.

there is one place in Arizona showing it in a theater. "limited release"

The story Gault told about killing 54 Mexican Bandits in one night near Candelaria seems entirely made up. I’m surprised that Hamer’s Son didn’t object to it being in the script. The “ Manos Arribas “ ( hands up ) command being given AFTER shooting the bad guys is part of Ranger lore and has been attributed to different events.

It is still a well done movie in my opinion.

I'll take your word for it.

Nope it’s true. It was part of “The Plan of San Diego” which was sort of a Mexican rebel/bandito insurgency to take back the Southwest during WW I. The town and the fight were actually in Mexico.

Yep and Frank had a Remington Model 8



This shows a lot of the guns.


IMFDB Movie Gun Data Base

I enjoyed the movie and take it for what it is, entertainment. I have read quite a bit about Texas and the struggles it went through to become a state. There was no end to the riff raff, bandits, thieves, murders, racial injustice, lynching's, raiding and killing Comanche hostiles and corrupt politicians. Often, the only way one survived it all was by shooting their way to safety.

I don't doubt for a second that some Texas Rangers in those days, bent, broke and ignored the law and that some were corrupt. For sure, by todays standards many would of went to jail for their actions. I also believe that for several reasons Texas was unique in many ways, as it was often fighting against Mexican bandits, Comanche Indians, who were terrifying to go up against in battle and feared by other Indians and the endless stream of desperados coming in from the states thinking they could hide out in Texas and continue their evil ways.

There is a book about Frank Hammer written by John Bossenecker that gives a much bigger picture of who the man was and what he did in his career as a Texas Ranger. He started off with the Rangers when they wore cowboy hats and rode horses and served through the transition years from horse back to automobiles and suits and ties and had very little support when confronted with dangerous situations. Unfortunately, we may never see a movie portraying what he went through in real life. He was involved in so much more then Bonnie and Clyde and I personally don't blame him one bit for not always exposing him self and others to further risk by saying, "hands up", or what ever when the response was going to be incoming fire.

One thing is for sure, he was not the least bit shy about confronting rough men with a slap along side of the head or pressing a trigger. His sweet little wife was also not afraid to drop the trigger on her little pistol and shot her first husband and shot at bad guys trying to shoot Frank. They were a good match for each other. I believe he was in over 50 gunfights and wounded many times. Was he a man killer, absolutely and good at it. Did all of them need killing, I doubt any of us will ever know as we were not there and the truth fades with time and the blood long ago disappeared into the Texas dirt.

Of this I am sure, had I been a Texas Ranger at the same time he was I would of wanted him as my partner. He was one to "Ride the River" with!

I thought that was a USA Cavalry engagement. Was Hamer involved ?

In the Boessenecker book, I think the number killed in the described incident was six, not fifty-four. This is from memory as I haven't read the book in several years.

Saw the car when I was a kid. They had it at the County Fair and you payed $.50 cents to look at it. I’d just seen the movie with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, and I was impressed!

I can't say that Hamer never shot up 54 sleeping Banditos near Candelaria but the story in the movie did ring a bell - especially the "manos arriba" part.

I read this biography of Hamer a couple years ago: https://www.tbr.txstate.edu/archives/fall-2016/texas-ranger.html

Go to the web site and you'll see a description of an entirely different story with Hamer saying "manos arriba". The Mexicans were bootleggers and they were fully awake. And it was 6 dead - not 54.

My wife and I are going to watch it tonight. Thanks for the suggestion and critiques as I’m not nearly as familiar with this story as many of you are. 👍

JoeBob,

I did not know this.

When was Mr. Hamer born?

Good eye!

Very astute.

I'm only two generations away from people who knew Bonnie and Clyde. The garage apartment where the shootout in Joplin was, is still standing. I've been by it several times. It survived the big tornado.

lol

Thanks for the info and pic. Very interesting. Ironic that the house of the Unrepentant Sinner ended up being a church for awhile.

Anybody that doesn't give this film 5 out of 5 stars is a stupid son of a bitch.




Travis

1884-1955

It ain't The Searchers. It was all right.

somebody won their bet! Not sure who it was. but the bloom is of the rose, or the dew is off the lily!

Deflave: You are right on!
I gave it a 92 on a scale of one to one hundred.
I can't wait to watch it again.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Perhaps my calculator is broken.

I will take another pill.

I don't have the book, but Col. Askins told about taking a little jaunt across the river and killing some banditos that had absconded with some horse-flesh. It was prior to WWII.

Correct.

The Searchers is a fictional story made in ancient Rome.

The Highwaymen is a true story about one of the baddest lawmen to ever walk the earth.

Askins had more than one story.

Difference between he and Hamer was that Hamer refused to tarnish the image of a lawman. That's why he shunned publicity the way he did.

Yes.

Agreed.

You are a brother.

Sycamore,

I watched it again today.

I had nothing else to do.

My wife was working.

The army and the Rangers worked together on it. Hamer was very much involved. He just missed the biggest battle of it, though. The Rangers, including Hamer, and 8 soldiers were at a cattle loading terminal. The Rangers rode on leaving the soldiers to guard it. After they left, it was hit by about 60 bandits. Amazingly, none of the soldiers was killed but they repelled the Mexicans. The Rangers came back shortly after the Mexicans left. They followed and found several bodies that the raiders had left behind.

I think a lot of what is missing here is that The Highwaymen is based on Hamer's personal accounts and notes that have never been seen or heard publicly.

You either believe the story or you don't.

You're not going to find any historical records of lawmen shooting bandits in their sleep. That doesn't mean thousands of bandits weren't shot in their sleep throughout the 18 and 1900's.



Travis

Frank Hamer was born in March 1884, which made him 50 at the time of the B&C shootout.

Life expectancy in the US in 1934 was 59.

Puzzled by this quote. Life expectancy was shorter back then but that was accidents and disease plus unsophisticated medical care, folks didn’t actually age any faster than we do now. This was even true in Colonial days when the life expectancy was only 35.

I think we’re close in age (I’m 48) although geographically you’re much closer to them than I am. I remember my grandma and grandpa talking about B&C along with other notorious outlaws of the day. I worked the ER with a nurse that was directly related to pretty boy Floyd and she had some good stories. I think back as a boy and those days seemed like they were an eternity ago but as I get older the decades get shorter and the “yesterday’s” blur together.

I just started the movie after watching Lord of War again, I can’t stand Nicholas Cage but I like the movie.

Very true! I read that if you made it to 30 your life expectancy was roughly the same as it is now, that goes back a couple hundred years at least. Accidents, disease and infection were the thieves of young lives.

Has anyone considered that Gault was an outdoorsman who spent many evenings around fires with his co-workers? They swapped stories and lies. I'm thinking he was embellishing a story for the benefit of his audience. We've all done it.

That doesn’t mean you were an old man at 50. That just means that there was a lot of infant mortality to keep the life expectancy averages down. And it also means that a lot more people back then died from those serious but imminently treatable things that start to hit people in their fifties.

I’m not sure Birdy. Both of my Great Grandfathers and Great Grandmothers on my dad’s side all looked roughly the same in photos of them in their 40s and 50s as they did when I got to know them when they were in their 80’s and 90’s. We have quite a few pictures of them back during the depression and they look old even in their 30’s. It was a rough life picking cotton and walking behind a mule all day plowing. Not to mention having babies in the front bedroom and having basically no real medical care.

Just my observations but the guys I’m talking about looked a hell of a lot older when they were in their 30’s like me than my dad and his brothers do in their 50’s and 60’s.

It’s widely reported that J Edgar Hoover was pissed that these “ two cowboys “ accomplished what his Federal Agents could not. Also reported that Hamer sent word that he and Gault would go get John Dillinger if Hoover asked them to.

I kind of grew up with stories of Bonnie and Clyde. The town I grew up in was on highway along their favored route. They had to go through dozens of times. One time two associates of theirs got in a shootout with the law on a bridge and hit the bushes on the river. They got away and one of them was picked up in Dallas three days later. Seems like I remember my Aunt Bill telling me that they had a cousin that south of town that they would stay with from time to time. But Aunt Bill died in 1988, so I can’t ask her.

Oh, yeah it is worth noting that Hamer was put on them in the middle of February 1934 and had them dead by May.

102 days on their trail is what Hamer said. I saw a copy of his expense report for the last half of February. Meals were 35 - 45 cents each and hotels were 1.75 to 2.00 per night for both he and Gault. Car mileage was paid at .03 per mile.

I was born in 1941 at Iowa Park Tx and as a very young child I recall grownups talking about a young couple from there who set out to copy Clyde and Bonnie but we’re killed in their first robbery attempt, I believe. That Robin Hood image of Clyde was still persistent at that time.

There was lots of talk about Pretty Boy Floyd as well, but I’d never heard of Dillinger or Kelly until much later. If you missed the news on the radio.....it just stayed missed. Living out in the country, newspapers were unheard of and with telephones being a town luxury, I reckon we would qualify as ignorant by today’s standards. Even the radio was battery powered and relied on a wind charger to keep the battery up, so it did not stay on all the time.

If you compare the then and now remaining life expectancies of people who've already reached 50, they'll be much closer because the infant mortality doesn't count. It'll all be in how well modern medicine can keep old people alive longer. Back then, when old people got real sick, pneumonia usually finished them off. Now medicine can often cure the pneumonia and they live until the next bad bug comes along. We have a habit of keeping people alive long after their time.

Just finished watching it. IMO, a very good show, and as best I remember....fairly accurate! memtb

During the early part of the depression, my parents hadn't met yet. Mom was starting college in Idaho and Dad was riding the rails, traveling all over the country along with thousands of other men, looking for work wherever they could find it. News like that didn't reach them very often.

Streaming on any Android streaming device. I watched it Friday night, the 29th, the same day it was generally distributed to the theaters, with the app called Cinema.

Thanks!

Great movie must watch

Charles Arthur Floyd hated his nickname. He was as well-liked amongst poor folks as B&C.

Then there was Baby Face Nelson. I know ALL about him because I watched 'Oh Brother, Where Art Thou'.

I did not see any "old man" angle played up in the film.

It simply noted that Hamer was past his prime for that sort of work but used his wit and experience to overcome any age issue.

In the context of what he took on, 50 is old. Especially in 1934. And consider the miles on a person's body then versus today. There were no crossfit gyms or paleo diets.

These were men.

Most of the historians don’t think that Bonnie was as actively involved in the actual killing as she was portrayed in the movie. For instance Methvin said that he was the one who opened up first on the cops in Grapevine and that it was because he misunderstood Clyde’s intentions when Clyde told him to take them hostage. He said that Bonnie only went out to them to see if she could help them, not to finish them off. And the eyewitness changed his story about what he saw about 27 times, so most historians don’t believe the account shown in the movie.

Mom was raised in the Texas Cotton patch of the 30’s. Her dad was a sharecropper. They had no love for these two white trash thieves (B&C). As far as they were concerned they were just murderin’ little punks. . The bank
never came and took anything from them as they had nothing to take.

I do remember my granddad talking about having to participate in shooting cattle to get the price of beef up. One of FDR’s brilliant schemes. They weren’t his cows. He just got conscripted to participate. He didn't even own a gun! Too damn poor to buy one. Someone loaned him one. Said it was the most terrible thing he ever had to do.

I don't think Frank Hamer would much give a flying fugk.

The movie is based on his assessments based on decades of manhunts.

Meh...it’s a good movie, but Maney Gault was only 48 and was not a down and out drunk. He was actively employed with the Highway Patrol in 1934.

In some ways 50 back the was even younger than it is now. People weren’t counting down the days until they could draw Social Security. They worked. And they worked until they died because they didn’t have a choice. And yeah, a lot of them did die in their late 50s and 60s when one of these heart ailments or infections that people still get but mostly recover from today would kill them, but they worked.

Hamer like it so much that he pissed off J. Edgar Hoover by offering to catch John Dillinger.

Going to have to see it tonight when I get home.

My Mom was raised in east Texas. Born in 1923. They burned out and moved to Dallas about the time the war broke out. Dad was born and raised right here in south Kansas about thirty miles from Missouri, but it was dusty enough around here to have to put quilts, rags and such around the doors and windows to keep the dust out.

Grandpa was tough enough to stay here and not migrate to California. I guess that was good...They ate jackrabbits.

Another historical fact!!!!

Hamer was the only ever Oxford educated ranger!!!!

Truth! Look it up!

My wife and I watched the movie last night, and we enjoyed it. While I was on a road trip down south a couple of years ago, I visited the ambush site. Here are some pictures.

First, I made a stop at the Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum in Gibsland, Louisiana. It was a mixture of historical artifacts and hoke. It claims to be located on the site of Rosa's Cafe, where the duo dined for the last time. It had a couple of supposedly authentic shootout guns and then some others "just like the ones really used." They had shot up a different car as a simulated death car. They had some VHS tapes of History Channel type historical footage, some movie posters and some period artifacts. It was a hoot.


Here is the original marker at the ambush site:


Here is the newer model:


The ambush site:


Looking south on Highway 154 (toward Sailes):


Looking north on Highway 154 (toward Gibsland):

If Bonnie wasn't a participant in the killings then she was the poster child for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. lol Unlike all the stand up shootouts where they give the bad guy all the opportunity to kill them in all those old west movies, the real guys were just going to ambush them and kill them and then go home to their wives' chicken dinner while B&C were barking in hell. Same with the unlucky Frito Banditos, whether they were 6 or sixty in number.

Looks about like any other spot in the road in northwest Louisiana or east Texas.

The Barrow gang weren’t thrill killers. Plenty of instances where they let people, even cops, go. They just didn’t hesitate to kill someone, anyone, if they felt they had to.

I loaned my Son the book a long time ago. He called Saturday to say be watched the movie. I forgot about it. He did say he enjoyed the movie.

Truth! The weird thing about my tour in 2017 is that things still look just as bad in the rural areas as depicted during the depression, but without the shanty towns. There were abandoned houses everywhere. I went and visited where I learned to deer hunt in Huey Long's old stomping grounds in Winn Parish, and I couldn't believe it. I guess the decline in the logging industry hit that area hard. It was like being in a time warp!

thank you for sharing your thoughts, brother.

Please remember the feelings of the other brothers.

Oxford, Miss?

Texas

Ain’t no decline in the logging industry down here. Just in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t support that many people. For the most part, the logging industry didn’t get going good until most of the people cleared out. Damned near every one of those thousands of acres of pine woods were at one time covered in corn and cotton. But the boll weevil and soil depletion got the cotton and the Depression finished off those small farms.

In the county where I grew up in, it was the 2010 census before there were as many people as there were in the 1890 census. And even then, most of those were concentrated in one town instead of being spread out all over the county like they were in 1890.

I hear people talk about habitat depletion and urban enroachment all the time. That ain’t true in most of the rural south. Lots of those counties have more “wild” areas than at any time since white settlement began.

Deflave made my point. Men worked very hard back then and most guys were pretty rough looking for their age. Not an abundance of metro sexuals back then.

Fat wasn't an issue during the depression. You either worked it off or starved it off...or both.

The movie also committed one of those Hollywood sins that damned near everything in Hollywood set in Louisiana does. The sheriff had a cajun accent. He was 200 miles north of any real Cajuns.

Even if you're skinny, 106 days in a 1934 Ford chasing bad guys when you're 50 years old is gonna be less than a blast.

OK, thanks. I was just going by something my friend in Choudrant, LA told me.

If you look at the real life photos of the car, there were no bullet holes in the windshield on Clyde’s side unlike the movie. One thing all the guys agreed on was that the Louisiana deputy shot first as Clyde stopped to see what was up with Methvin. His first two shots hit Clyde in the head and killed him. Clyde’s foot came off the clutch and the car idled forward. As it did, they all unloaded in it. That’s pretty consistent with the car too. Look at all the holes in the front windshield on Bonnie’s side. You can tell they are exit holes and there are no holes in the back. So as that car went forward, they were shooting from the side.

I noticed that too in the ending credits.

I thought they did a great job with the final shootout scene. All the actor's mannerisms looked realistic. Especially Hamer.

Texans.

Yeah, but I don’t think anybody ever stepped off that hill and I don’t think anybody ever game them a chance to surrender.

Hoover was a big fan of technology and proving the worth of cutting edge law enforcement techniques.

Hamer used the long tradition of patience and staying on the trail. Embarrassing indeed.

At 44:00 they start talking about the ambush.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6YP7tv7ODu0&feature=youtu.be

Hell no.

"Get the drop" was the overall theme in my opinion.

I don't think they could have done the movie any better.

https://ew.com/movies/2019/03/29/the-highwaymen-kevin-costner-woody-harrelson/

When I was a kid in the late 1940s living in a small rural town in north Arkansas, it was standard for small traveling carnivals to visit throughout the south and midwest. I remember that virtually every one that came to our town over the years, always had a "Bonnie & Clyde" car in a big tent. You could pay 50¢ to go in the tent and see "the car Bonnie & Clyde were killed in."

What the various carny owners would do was go to some junkyard and buy a black 1934 Ford for a few dollars, take it out to a field and have some of the carny workers shoot it full of holes. Then they'd throw some cow's blood around in it, put it on a flatbed trailer and haul it around to gull all the suckers in the small towns. Gulled me! Hell, I was a kid and wanted to see where Bonnie & Clyde met their Maker.

Anyway, when I see something about "Bonnie & Clyde's 1934 death car," I always have to wonder. Is it really ........??

L.W.

Well, let’s see...its 10:30. If I leave now, I can be there by lunch.

With their record of killing cops, I don't think negotiating a surrender was on Hamer's 'to do' list.

I agree with that. I’m just not sure why the movie portrayed it like he did give them a chance.

Someone earlier said that one of the cops was across the road. There are no bullet holes on that side. Plus, I don't think any cops are dumb enough to be shooting at each other with machine guns.

I don't believe it did show he gave them a chance.

To me it showed he was there to kill them. And he did.

They showed Bonnie reaching for something on the seat. When she did that, they cut loose.

He never stepped off the hill and they never said “boo” to them. When Clyde slowed down to almost a stop, they all stood up and shot the schit out of that car.

Hamer says in the movie he is there to kill them at least three times. I don’t think they were trying to portray anything else.

Then why does it show him stepping off the hill in front of the car and saying “Stick’em up”?

That didn’t happen.

How the fugk would you know?

By all accounts, the movie is based on Hamer's accounts while he was still alive.

Everybody else had their turn to give their version, this was his.

Hamer was notoriously tight lipped and turned down all interviews and book deals.

Anybody ever find out Hamer's wife's reaction when he brought her car back home? That was a loose end for me.

TFF

That chick played a pro in Deadwood and currently (or the last time I saw it) is on Fear the Walking Dead.

This is a screen shot of them grabbing guns a split second before Hamer starts shooting. As soon as Bonnie looked down and moved, he let go. There's no way that they could have brought rifles into play in the car.

I think the older we get, the less capable we are of fighting, physically and mentally.
But with old age comes the "don't give a chit".
The line may have moved over time due to life experiences, but when crossed the response delivered without argument, punching or threats.
Just shoot the fugger.

I wouldn't mess with anybody, esp some old fart.
He from a time when men still had spines.

“Life in prison” means less and less.

Rock Chuck: I have brought "Rifles into play" many thousands of times from dozens of different vehicles!
I think your contention is incorrect.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Ted Hinton himself shot that footage with a camera that a reporter from the Dallas Morning News had given him.

Just read up on this recently, one of the other guys present with Hamer was the first to open fire, no warning given, which was a cause of embarrassment to him later.

Dunno that we will ever know Frank Hamer’s game plan, but in his career IIRC he killed around 60 men, most of whom likely needed killing.

In their shoes I woulda opened fire too, Barrow and Parker had already killed a number of Cops and regular folk.

At least two other Ranger Captains claimed that they were offered the job before it was given to Hamer, but they turned it down saying,” We don’t ambush people and we don’t shoot women.”

Sounds like jealousy to me, but it reinforces the idea that killing Clyde Barrow was the plan all along and that Bonnie would likely be collateral damage.

They all agreed (about the only thing they all the agreed on) that the Louisiana deputy shot first and hit Clyde in the head killing him instantly. Oh, yeah they all agreed that Bonnie was screaming as they shot her.

Lee Simmons promised the dying prison guard that everyone involved in the prison break would die. And they all did except for Methvin who gave up Bonnie and Clyde. It was an execution from the start. But they wouldn’t have surrendered anyway most likely.

Well... Yeah.....but these guys are just ordinary, run of the mill heroes.....not a Super Hero such as you.

Grandpa Marvin said that Hamer told him she screamed like a wildcat.

He also said that when Hamer got back from Louisiana he stopped by their shop, dropped off one gun. The Model 8. And all he said was "clean it" and left the shop.

I know that recently there has been some ressarch stating the only Model 8 involved in the shoot was used by the afore mentioned deputy that shot Clyde in the head. Apparently it is thought the Parish Sheriff and Hamer were armed with sawed off Model 11 Remingtons in 12’ga. There is one photoed on top of the car after the shootout that was allegely the one used by the sheriff.

curedog4570: If you think a normal person such as I (by the way I never claimed to be a super-hero - are you mentally deficient?) can NOT bring into play a Rifle from inside a vehicle then you, indeed, are as stupid as you make yourself appear to be!
I have brought Rifles into play from inside vehicles for well over half a century now and plan on doing so for many more years to come!
Sheesh - your mind must be addled?
In fact I brought "Rifle's" (notice the plural!) into play from inside my vehicle just yesterday and once it warms up a bit here I plan on doing so again this afternoon!
Maybe a rabid dog has bitten you recently?
Double sheesh.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Unlike you, I figured that Rock Chuck has fired rifles from inside vehicles just as I have..... countless times.So, with that in mind,I considered that he was cognizant of the difference between shooting a coyote or Prarie Dog and drawing against a Lawman that already has you in his sights.

I’d call the shot of hand movement toward the firearms artistic license.

It’s a pretty safe bet although the only people that could state that honestly would be the perps.

And yes. Those weapons could be easily brought into action from inside the vehicle.

Jake Petmecky? Didn't he have one of the handful of Python's in 41 Mag?

It’s been all of three days since I hit the brakes on my pickup, poked my Marlin 30 30 out the window and shot at a coyote hightailing it across a wheat field. I do it an about a weekly basis.

I even hit one occasionally, but if I’m serious, I replace the Marlin with a Hornet or 244 AI. They have barrels short enough to be handy in a pickup.

Pistol not found in death car, but recovered from Bonnie's clothing by the embalmer. Photos of bodies at the morgue, and others of the shooting site.

https://caseantiques.com/item/lot-404-38-colt-model-1902-pistol-bonnie-clyde-2/

Jake Petmecky? Didn't he have one of the handful of Python's in 41 Mag?

Possibly. Last time I saw him was about 1970 way after he had sold the shop on Congress ave. He was gunsmithing at T’s sporting goods in his retirement. It was a shop west of Oak Hill on SH 71. Close to the Thomas Springs road intersection. Kinda one of them last chance shops before the highland lakes and hill country.

Take a look at the photo from the movie. The muzzles were well under the dash. They would have had to lift the stocks above the seat backs, pull the guns back, then figure out how to aim through the windshield, all while Hamer was aiming straight at them from the front. They would have had to open the doors and step out to use them. Hamer actually put himself in a fairly safe spot, not to mention being well out of the line of fire of the other 5 cops.

Many years ago, we used to drive the desert roads at night spotlighting jack rabbbit's. I shot a lot from the driver's seat. However, I had a Jeep and the windshield was down. It was the only way to use a rifle to shoot straight forward without getting out.

Ha, told my wife the same thing.
We watched it Sat night. Pretty good show and seemed accurate enough from what I’ve read of the events.
It’s of historical significance to us. Frank is my wife’s great great great uncle

[/quote]

Ain’t no decline in the logging industry down here. Just in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t support that many people. For the most part, the logging industry didn’t get going good until most of the people cleared out. Damned near every one of those thousands of acres of pine woods were at one time covered in corn and cotton. But the boll weevil and soil depletion got the cotton and the Depression finished off those small farms.

In the county where I grew up in, it was the 2010 census before there were as many people as there were in the 1890 census. And even then, most of those were concentrated in one town instead of being spread out all over the county like they were in 1890.

I hear people talk about habitat depletion and urban enroachment all the time. That ain’t true in most of the rural south. Lots of those counties have more “wild” areas than at any time since white settlement began.[/quote]

We've got the same in the area I grew up in. Most of what has been nothing but woods/timber in my lifetime was either cotton or sugarcane fields 70 years ago. The closest "town" that used to have a school and a post office now has neither and over 100 people less than it did in the 1900 census.

That's cool.

Can she verify that? I don't mean on here but have you guy's done the whole family tree thing?

You have a choice in Texas.....you can be kin to Frank Hamer or Bob Wills.

I've met about 6,000 people that's kin to a tunnel rat in Vietnam.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

JFC. One of the main reasons they had the weapons was their ability to deploy them quickly from the vehicle.

Did you see the movie?

Watched it this afternoon, I liked it.

Somebody hurry and make a bootleg copy! I don’t have Netflix anymore 😢

That six bucks a game changer or what?

No internet here at the Ranch.

I dropped Netflix when they put Susan Rice on the Board of Directors.

Buy a new ranch!

😬

One of Frank's brothers was Harrison, also a Texas Ranger.
One of Harrison's sons (Frank's nephew) was Clinton P Hamer, also a Texas Ranger.
Clint married Georgia Ware and they had three daughters, all three still living.
My wife's grandmother is one of those three daughters.
It ain't all that spread out, really. My FIL was pretty close to Clint and used to hunt mule deer with him in west Texas.
Remember Harrison died in '77 and Clint in '90.
My wife attended Clint's funeral as a child. I visited with his wife Georgia a couple times and attended her funeral in '07.

Big family.

I am watching it again and keeping an eye out for anomaly’s. 😁. I don’t know if it’s been mentioned but I noticed that the shotgun hulls they picked up on the roadside appeared to be plastic and not paper.

When woody filled the water bag at one of the camps, i was thinking they would hang it in front of the grill off the radiator cap. They tend to drip and sweat a little. Set then down i side the car and things will get wet.

Likely already mentioned, but to walk into a hardware store and pick up a 1918 Browning BAR and the rest of Hamer’s required arsenal would have been beyond cool...Expensing it to the State of Texas, even better....😎

It’s so nice having Flave back and normal once again. GFY from Oregon 😬😎

It was a Colt Monitor.

The one in the cop's hands appear to be paper.

Sheesh...Oregonians are dumb!

Still a f-ucking cool arrangement, expensing a Colt Monitor. 😎

Yeah.

I liked that he made a nice ammo order too. And the half moons for the 1917 were a nice touch.

Kinda reminded me of The Getaway when McQueen buys the shotgun and the 00 buck to go with it.

It’s pretty good, saw it yesterday

Watched it last night. It was an archery and gun store and he bought a Monitor and a BAR and a Thompson with I forget how many 20 round "clips" and two drums, plus the handguns. Didn't like the shiny Smith 1917 but the dealer had a blued one as well so he got that. Also got the Remington Model 11 riot gun with the 20" barrel and a couple of others.

Overall a good movie, definitely wasn't bored during the 2 hours watching it. Showed good police work - trying to establish patterns to get a step ahead of the outlaws, then a lot of sitting and waiting for something to happen. I liked the scene the first time he chased the kid with the drop off message bottle at Mrs. Parker's house, too old and fat to make it over the fence to go after him. I'm beginning to empathize...

And the "Colt automatic pistol" which I assume was the .38 Super you read so much about.

watched it.........so so..........

Breaking Bad is more entertaining

Gunbroker 1918 BAR $75k...I’m sure a Colt Monitor would be even more.

Anybody have one in a closet and willing to trade me for a custom 300 Weatherby? 😎

Two hours of my life I'll never get back.

The whole thing was nothing more than the press over glorifying a disease. It was during the depression and the press got people's mind off their own problems for a while. Hamer isolated the disease and stomped it out like medical researchers got rid of small pox.

Wife and I watched it last night. 2 1/2 out 4. I'd watch it again.

It seems a lot of us here are giving netflix and the obamas 10.99 a month.

Well, yeah.....but we get something in return.

In the movie, he also buys a BAR.

Killerv: I get NETFLIX free so I use it only on occasion.
I still thought the movie/story and its presentation were great.
I think I will watch it again - TONIGHT.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I missed that.

Please forgive.

Coitus....I missed it too 🍆😎

I rather liked it when Hamer's wife said in the beginning 'I knew who you were when I married you'

Lots of women forget that.

Some of us marry right...The 3rd time. 😬😎

When I think of Bonnie and Clyde I compare them to my Grandparents. Clyde is two weeks older than my Grandpa. My Grandma is a few months older tan Bonnie. While Bonnie and Clyde were stealing and killing my Grandparents were struggling to make a living and provide a home for my Dad.

As were 99.9 % of all the other white people of TX at that time.
Bonnie & Clyde we’re nothing more than white trash low life criminals! Fortunately, they’re were a few good men like Frank Hamer around who were willing to take out the trash!

"Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer, the Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde"

Is a good book. lots of details, not so much about the guns.

lot of crooked sheriffs in the old days apparently