CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Haven Kaycee
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
hrkepler
'Bloody Mama' is low budgeted gangster film directed by Roger Corman. It is a gritty B-movie loosely based on real life Ma Barker who ran The Barker Gang. Not the best gangster flick out there but interesting enough in its heavy exploitation sauce to give it a curious look. The film doesn't idolize the gangster lifestyle but rather showing them merciless sociopaths these kind of people actually were. Corman turns on another twist of sleaze with Ma Barker's incestuous relationship with her sons. Shelly Winters' larger-than-life performance as corruptive and disillusioned Ma Barker in the verge of insanity is just magnificent. Although the performance goes on the edge of hammy, but it is powerful play and undoubtedly entertaining. And one can't go without mentioning the immensely talented supporting cast with strong acting works - Bruce Dern, Pat Hingle, Diane Varsi, Scatman Crothers and Robert DeNiro in one his earliest roles as junky Lloyd Barker.Fast paced, energetic action ride about machine-gun toting mom who robs banks with her sons and speeding past depression era's '70s style supermarkets. Nice piece of enjoyable trash, and it is one of the Corman's personal favorites.
Fred Schaefer
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.
gavin6942
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.
JasparLamarCrabb
It's not trash, but it's certainly not in a class with BONNIE AND CLYDE or even DILLINGER, but BLOODY MAMA is a ton of fun. Shelley Winters is scary, creepy and actually a little touching as "the greatest mother of them all." Her kinky brood is played by up'n'comers Robert Walden, Robert De Niro and Don Stroud. They're all terrific, with DeNiro chewing a bit of scenery as Lloyd, the family's glue-sniffing junkie. Roger Corman's direction is, as expected, efficient and lean, although it's remarkably blood-free, despite the inflammatory title. The supporting cast includes Diane Varsi (looking pretty lousy with a perm and bad skin) and Pat Hingle (as the family's unlucky kidnapping victim).
