Bloody Mama

There's been some degree of critical re-evaluation of Roger Corman's work in recent times, attesting to the maxim that if someone sticks around long enough they'll be accorded the status of a legend. I can't say I'm on board with this view, there isn't really much of merit in Bloody Mama - it's very much a schlockly Shelley Winters veheicle that seeks to exploit the blood and guts glory of Bonnie and Clyde by emulating it in an incredibly vapid and half-arsed way.

Winters plays a highly fictionalised version of Depression-era gangster Ma Barker, with the film following the escalating hi-jinks of her lawless sons as she tenuously tries to exert control over them. The film's prologue shows Barker's sexual abuse as a child at the hands of her father and brothers. She vows to raise a family of loyal boys that will become her instrument of revenge on society. What follows is an episodic hillbilly-gangster B film that juxtaposes jolly hoedown music with violence and pseudo-sermonising, aided by a healthy helping of stock footage and irrelevant voiceover to help establish the era. There's no real cohesiveness to the film, it's more or less just a series of scenes pretending to be a real movie, and it gets boring really fast.

There are some good actors but the hack script and paint-by-numbers direction makes it what it is: a cheaply produced midnight movie. Shelley Winters might've been good if she'd had a decent director to reign her in but instead she goes way over the top. Sometimes this sort of thing can be a welcome relief in poor films but Winters' wailing and yabbering becomes intensely grating and unbearable. Also look out for a young Robert De Niro as her skinny hillbilly-junkie son. He's at his best when he's completely smacked out and I couldn't help but laugh when he impersonates and mocks Scatman Crothers. It's a small glimpse of light in an otherwise dim film though.

DIRECTOR: Roger Corman
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Robert Thom, with story input from Don Peters. Based on the true story of Ma Barker.
KEY ACTORS: Shelley Winters, Robert De Niro, Pat Hingle, Don Stroud, Bruce Dern, Scatman Crothers.

RELATED TEXTS:
- Directly influenced by Bonnie and Clyde, a superior film in every way imaginable.
- Other Depression-era gangster exploitation films from the 60s and 70s include Big Bad Mama, Boxcar Bertha, The Grissom Gang and Bonnie's Kids.
- Roger Corman has produced and/or directed nearly 400 films and TV productions, tackling a wide variety of popular genres and almost all of a uniformly low budget. Prior to directing Bloody Mama he had previously produced the gangster film The St. Valentines Day Massacre.