Bloody Mama

United States

1970

90 Min

Color

1.85:1

English

Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
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EXEC Samuel Z. Arkoff, James H. Nicholson

PROD Roger Corman, Norman T. Herman

CAST Shelley Winters, Pat Hingle, Don Stroud, Bruce Dern, Robert De Niro, Robert Walden

A psychological gangster film based on fact. Machine gun totin’ Ma Barker lead her family gang (her sons) on a crime spree in the Depression era. Her loyal brood have every perversion imaginable. The sadistic Herman sleeps with his Ma. When Fred Barker is released from prison, he brings home his cell mate/lover Kevin Dirkman, who also sleeps with Ma, much to Fred’s chagrin. Lloyd Barker is a spaced-out drug addict who sniffs glue if nothing better is around. Ma kidnaps happy-go-lucky millionaire Sam Adams Pendlebury and holds him for ransom. Arthur Barker – Ma’s wallflower son – and Herman’s hooker lady friend Mona Gibson also figure in the story. The bloody finale is virtually choreographed and a visual stunner. Filmed in the Ozarks. —IMDb

Director

Roger Corman

Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926), sometimes nicknamed “King of the Bs” for his output of B-movies (though he himself rejects this as inaccurate), is an Academy Award-winning American producer and director of low-budget movies, some of which have an established critical reputation: his cycle of films derived from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe for example. Corman is also a sometime actor, taking minor roles in such films as The Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather Part II, Apollo 13 and Philadelphia.

Corman has apprenticed many now-famous directors, stressing the importance of budgeting and resourcefulness; Corman once joked he could make a film about the fall of the Roman Empire with two extras and a sagebrush. One of the most expensive films he produced was Battle Beyond the Stars. —Wikipedia

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Konrad Szlendak

30Aug12

Classic pot bolier by Corman and AIP. Not the best genre movie the guy has made, but has some nice patterns overall. Shelley Winters is mad in her role and De Niro really looks like an insane soul with his weird baby-talk... if they worked it out properly, maybe it could have been something like "Bonnie & Clyde" of a B-movie realm while now it seems more like a blueprint for Corman's New World Pictures flicks.