Kate Barker (Shelly Winters) and her low-life brood go on a bloody crime spree in the 1930s in this charmless gangster film from Roger Corman. Winters, an actress not known for subtlety, lays on the self-righteous reprobate act pretty thickly as the murderously doting mother who smokes cigars, kills innocent people, and beds her sons. The most interesting character is strung-out son Lloyd, played by a very young Robert De Niro, although Pat Hingle has perhaps the best part as kidnapping victim Sam Pendlebury. Filling out the cast is Bruce Dern as Barker-boy Fred's buddy/lover, Don Stroud as sadistic son Herman, and Diane Varsi as Herman's tired-looking hooker-fiancé Mona. The film is quite bloody although the special effects at the various shootouts are not overly convincing and the overt violence takes a second seat to the general unpleasantness of scenes such as trolling for alligators by dragging a struggling pig behind a boat. Not one of the better Depression-era gangster films (but you can probably guess that from the cheesy poster).
Review of Bloody Mama
