Bloody Mama (1970)

Why so much hype?

Excellent but underrated film

The first must-see film of the year.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

No doubt inspired by the huge success of the big budget major Hollywood studio movie "Bonnie & Clyde", American-International Pictures teamed up with producer/director Roger Corman to make this story of Ma Barker and her sons. But the results are sort of disappointing. I feel I should point out that I didn't find the movie to be awful - the movie is never boring, the production values are okay, the cast (not just Winters but also the future stars) give good performances, and there are some trashy touches that are fun. However, the script should have had a lot more work before filming started. We don't really see what motivates not only the character of Ma Barker, but her loyal sons (who are pretty interchangeable for the most part.) Also, the first half of the movie has some pretty sloppy storytelling, being one vignette after another with no firm story being told. And in the end, the movie can't decide whether it is a serious look at the Barker gang or a trashy drive-in viewpoint.As I said, the movie is not terrible, but it doesn't really work at whatever angle you want to regard it as. It's probably best suited for viewing when you're in a real undemanding mood.

Bloody Mama was in the theaters back when I was too young to get into R rated movies by myself, only recently did I get a chance to finally view this film. Seeing it now after nearly four decades, I think Bloody Mama tells us much more about pop culture in 1970 then it does about criminals in the 1930's. First of all, it's clearly an attempt by Roger Corman to cash in on the enormous success of Bonnie and Clyde, made only a few years earlier. The producers take full advantage of the changes in censorship ushered in by that previous film and here give us a screenplay filled with incest, homosexuality, nudity, drug addiction, and sadism, all portrayed by a cast of characters without a single redeeming moral value except for the fact that Ma Barker really did love her sons. A lot.Corman was obviously pandering to early 70's audiences (especially the youth like myself) who simply could not get enough good old sex and violence in their entertainment. Sadly, Bloody Mama isn't very good when compared with Bonnie and Clyde or The Wild Bunch; the screenplay just trudges along with scenes built to showcase each character's particular depraved personality. And the low budget really shows. Still any movie with this cast is worth seeing at least once if you're a film buff. Don Stroud, Clint Kimbrough, Robert Walden and a young Robert De Niro are the Barker boys. Was this De Niro's first gangster role? Stroud is pretty much forgotten today, but he was a great bad guy on old cop shows and would have been a much bigger star if he'd gotten the right role. Bruce Dern is Walden's prison lover who joins the gang and gets to sleep with Ma. He's still playing mean bastards all these years later, just watch HBO's Big Love. The only remotely redeeming person is Pat Hingle's kidnapped businessman; Hingle was an always dependable character star who brought a lot to anything he was in. Scatman Crothers is here a full decade before he worked for Kubrick in The Shinning and the late Diane Varsi gets to show off her breasts in one of her last roles. The main reason to see Bloody Mama of course is Shelley Winters as Ma Barker. Winters was one of the movies all time great scenery chewers and she doesn't let us down here. Her Kate Barker snarls, yells and sneers when she needs to and then turns around and cries, pleads and begs if that is what it takes to get her boys to bend to her will. Winters made a long career out of playing monster mothers, shrews and harridans, but there was something about the way she portrayed her mean characters that suggested they were just women who'd had to put up with a lot in life and had learned to give it back twice over. In the end, Bloody Mama is a relic of a bygone time, that time being the 1970's.

This film is Roger Corman and Sam Arkoff's answer to "Bonnie and Clyde". But not only did they take the theme of Depression-era gangsters, they also borrowed the idea of completely eradicating the facts. I would be hard-pressed to name one thing in this film that was based a real event.That being said, it has some historical merit. Shelley Winters gives a good performance, and has said she was proud of the film (which she oddly enough promoted as a film denouncing violence, despite its clearly violent nature). She even allegedly took a punch to the face, resulting in a nose injury bad enough to get X-rays.Bruce Dern and Robert DeNiro give some of the earliest performances of their careers, and any DeNiro fan who has not seen him in this is really missing out on his humble beginnings. These days, he is past his prime, making cheesy comedies. But have you seen him before his prime?Perhaps most interesting, this was the big-screen debut of cinematographer John A. Alonzo. While he may not be well-known, he did go on to film "Harold and Maude", "Chinatown" and "Scarface" and snagged an Oscar nomination. Not bad for a graduate of the Corman School.

Shelly Winters plays a wild Ma Barker in this decent Roger Corman directed flick about the Barker gang of the great depression era. Everyone playing Ma Barkers sons, who include Robert Deniro, gives a good performance. Bruce Dern also has a small role as sort of an outside member of the gang. The Barker gang is on the run, lead by their fearless mother. They rob banks and whoever they can get their hands on. There is one particular good scene involving Deniro, complete with his Max Cady accent, where he acts on the advances of a young blonde swimmer who flirts with him while he sits on the dock. Her flirty ways turn to terror as Deniro realizes he tells her some forbidden information and can't afford to let her live. Deniro lost 30 pounds for the role. He also told Corman he could drive even though he didn't have a license. Pat Hingle, a great character actor, as a high profile man who the gang kidnaps to get ransom money is also very good. This film is no "Bonnie and Clyde" but I'm surprised it didn't get more attention. Worth a look.