Big Bad Mama (1974)
4/10
The crime movie that makes you ask, Who's Ma Barker?
27 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Yes, he repressible Shelley Winters. You play Ma Barker a few years before this, also for producer Roger Corman, and in this film, he casts Angie Dickinson as the more trim Wilma McClatchie, fictional but unforgettable. It's the same time period, as Wilma goes from moonshining to petty theft to bank robbing, joining up with Captain Kirk along the way. They knew they weren't going to win the Oscars for this film so they just go out of their way to have a good time, and a lot of that is without clothes. There's also a young Tom Skerritt and two of the worst actresses ever playing Wilma's daughters.

Lots of car cases, shoot em ups, and funny dialogue, certainly not Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams, but witty and often campy. "Never trust a girl for offering to give her Donuts away for free" one of the daughters says, and of course, it's followed by a robbery and banjo music, a 1930's gangster saga cliche in use since "Bonnie and Clyde". Dickinson, just getting ready to start her role as "Police Woman", shows off a great body, although you don't really get to see much cast a bear butt and brief glimpses of her breasts. In her sex scene with Shatner, he appears to be nude too. I didn't go into this seriously at all. I just went in knowing that I was going to have a good time watching a bad film, and when you go in with that attitude, you seldom come out disappointed.
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