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This week on «Film Friday» I am celebrating Warren Beatty's 80th birthday, which is next Thursday, by telling you a little bit about the film that made him a star. Incidentally, 2017 also marks the 50th anniversary of this film's original release.   Directed by Arthur Penn, Bonnie and Clyde (1967) begins in the middle of the Depression with a meeting between Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway), whose car he tries to steal. Bonnie, who is bored by her job as a waitress, is deeply intrigued by Clyde and decides to take up with him by becoming his partner in crime. At first, the duo's amateur efforts are not very lucrative, but their crime spree shifts into high gear once they partner up with a dim-witted gas station attendant named C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard), Clyde's older brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and his shrill wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), a preacher's daughter.   Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow....

To celebrate Natalie Wood's birthday, this week on "Film Friday" I'm bringing you one of my favorite films of hers, which also happens to be the first film I ever saw with her. Original release poster by Bill Gold Directed by Elia Kazan, Splendor in the Grass (1961) tells the story of Wilma "Deanie" Loomis (Natalie Wood) and Bud Stamper (Warren Beatty), two young lovers living in a small Kansas town in the late 1920s. Deanie's mother (Audrey Christie) is a domineering woman who boasts of her aversion to men and warns her daughter that nice girls do not have sexual feelings. Bud's father, Ace (Pat Hingle), an arrogant self-made millionaire, has "all his hopes pinned" on his son and tells him to forget marriage until he graduates from Yale. Unable to consummate their love, the confused and frustrated youngsters end their relationship. After Bud becomes sexually involved with Juanita Howard (Jan Norris), the most permissive girl in...