That part didn't make sense to me in how they portrayed it. It had Hamer look at a pic and it showed a license plate behind Bonnie. But in the tv movie, the gang had already stolen another car after the pic, so the license plate would not have been the same when they went to Florida. I realize they changed a few things in the story, but that one bugged me the most.
shareThey stole cars & also changed the plates, so they would be looking for the plate #, not a particular model of car
shareSo you are saying they used the same license plate as the previous car. That doesn't make sense to me. It would seem like they would use different license plates on each stolen car. Not use the same one every time. But I gather the movie was trying to say it differently then.
shareThey had plates for every state they went in, so their car wouldn't look conspicuous and they wouldn't look like out-of-towners (staters?), thus arising suspicion from the locals.
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marvelass,
That was my thought, too. So why were they running a Missouri tag in Florida? Especially tags from a car they ditched long ago. Guess that was the only way the writers could get Hamer a lead. Hamer would love today's technology!
Take a chance, flip a coin, everything is 50/50
Well, they would still have the Missouri plate in their collection (should they return to MO), but they wouldn't be using it in Florida or any other state for that matter, so I don't know how Hamer (in the movie) tracked them down in Florida with that plate. They would've had a Florida one.
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They stated pretty plainly in the movie that Clyde kept a bunch of plates that he changed often.
It's a guaranteed disaster...like eating a burrito before sex.
I got that he had a lot of license plates. Why didn't he change that one then? That's the question. I couldn't see them sending pics to the reporter and having the same freakin license plate in the pic after they changed cars. I just don't see it. The better explanation on how Hamer tracked was the other thing they showed. Where he said they liked to hit places near the border. I think they should have just dropped that whole scene.
shareFrom what I recall, Hamer was also reading police reports at that time. I suppose he was tracking them that way- by looking through reports in surrounding states (though I'm surprised he had anything from as far as Florida) to match any with known B&C robberies. When the camera zoomed in, the report mentions a license plate, the same as the one in the picture. Sure, there's the whole "stealing another car" to worry about, but that's how Hamer narrowed down which state they were in.
I'm not sure though if the scene I just described is the one you're questioning, but I think it is.