Penn was mightier than the hoard

Bad week for Old Hollywood last week. Eddie Fisher , whose specialty was marrying movies stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds. Tony Curtis . And, of course, Arthur Penn .

My favorite Curtis movie? “The Sweet Smell of Success,” of course. I didn’t care for it when I was younger, mainly because it was a noir without any gunplay. And what was the point of that? But when I saw it during a revival a few years ago at NYC’s Film Forum , I had a different reaction. And while Curtis always was a pretty boy, he held his own with Burt Lancaster, no small feat.

It’s Penn, though, who made the most difference in my moviegoing life. Few films have had more of an effect on me than “Bonnie and Clyde.” Not just the violence, which was groundbreaking in the way that so many ‘70s-era movies were, but the style with which Penn presented the story of the two lovers/killers/antiheroes.

He made only a handful of films, but Penn created a body of work that is more memorable, and influential in a qualitative way, than a rugby team of Michael Bays. So, R.I.P.

Below : Arthur Penn explains how his work in television helped shape his famous final scene in “Bonnie and Clyde.”