Bloody Mama
Tags: comedy, depressing, murder, cult, violence, satire, sadist

Plot synopsis:
Young Kate Barker (Lisa Jill) is brutalized by her father and older brothers, who rape her. Thirty-five years later, the middle-aged Kate 'Ma' Barker (Shelley Winters) now brutalizes innocent people herself, while indulging her monstrous sexual appetites. She lives by robbing banks with her four sons; the pragmatic Arthur (Clint Kimbrough), the sadistic Herman (Don Stroud), the bisexual Fred (Robert Walden), and the loyal, drug-addicted Lloyd (Robert De Niro). It all begins in the late 1920s when Ma leaves her husband, George, and her Arkansas home and embarks on her own with her four sons on a robbery-murder spree to make her own fortune, while keeping them under a tight leash.
When Herman and Fred are arrested and imprisoned for petty theft charges, Ma takes over the group and leads Arthur and Lloyd on a bank robbery spree to gain enough money to get her sons out of jail. The gang is joined by a gunman named Kevin (Bruce Dern) who was Fred's cellmate during his incarceration (and his strongly implied lover). The group is also joined by a local prostitute named Mona Gibson, whom Herman frequented before his imprisonment. The gang resorts to more violent action and robberies.
While hiding out at a cabin in Kentucky, Lloyd comes across a young woman swimming at a nearby lake whom he sexually assaults. Not wanting the woman to report them to the police, the Barkers hold her captive and Ma eventually kills her by drowning her, despite the protests of her sons.
Some time later, the gang arrives in Tennessee where they abduct a wealthy businessman named Sam Pendlebury (Pat Hingle). Holding him for a $300,000 ransom, the sons, particularly Herman, bond with their captive whom they see as the sympathetic father figure they never had. When Herman and Mona go to collect the ransom, they are chased by a pair of FBI agents and barely escape. When they find that the ransom is only half of what they originally demanded, Ma orders her sons to kill Sam rather than let him go. But none of them can bring themselves to do it and they set him free, lying to Ma about killing him.
Next, the gang hides out in Florida Everglades where Lloyd soon dies from a heroin overdose and Mona leaves Herman and the gang after she reveals that she's pregnant and does not want to be around them anymore out of fear for the safety of her unborn child. which Herman fathered. Her fears are justified when Herman and Kevin give away their hiding place a little later: a local handyman and caretaker named Moses (Scatman Crothers) witnesses them shooting an alligator out on a lake with a Tommy gun. Moses then calls the police and reports his suspicions.
At the climax, several FBI agents and local police arrive at the Barkers' farmhouse hideout and a huge shootout ensues between the authorities and the surviving members of the gang. Kevin, Fred, and Arthur are all killed. Herman commits suicide to prevent himself from being sent to prison again. Ma is the last one to fall.

Review: Some movies romanticize the life of crime, or make the criminals into sympathetic characters, but Roger Corman's "Bloody Mama" goes in the opposite direction with its depiction of the Barker crime family of the 30's and their ruthless murders, sadism, incest, drug addiction, and insanity.
It's a morbidly colorful mixture of negative southern poor white trash stereotypes, encapsulated in a family of sociopaths, with a vintage Shelly Winters bringing her trademark intensity to the role of Ma Barker and a great cast as her sons and their associates, including Don Stroud, Robert Walden, Bruce Dern, Diane Varsi, and Robert DeNiro.
Corman is known as the King of the Quickies, which gives many people who aren't all that familiar with his work the impression is that all he made was "bad" movies that can only be enjoyed on a camp level.
'Bloody Mama' tells the story of Ma Barker and her sons, infamous criminals during the Depression.
- cult favourites Don Stroud and Bruce Dern AND a scene stealing performance from a young Robert De Niro.
Add to that the familiar character actors Pat Hingle, Scatman Crothers and the appearance of Diane Varsi from the legendary 'Wild In The Streets', and b-grade film buffs will be ecstatic.
Unpleasant and violent movie with a deranged Shelley Winters reenacting murderous Ma Barker.
The most colorful epoch of criminality in America during the Depression era is brought to life in this story of a bank-robber family , in a period when any employment, even illegal, was cherished, ambition, money and power originated an interminable cycle of fury and violence.
The infamous Ma Barker ( Shelley Winters)'s blood-thirsty gang of the 30s backed by his four rare sons ( Robert De Niro, Robert Walden, Clint, Don Stroud) carry out heists to banks and a crime spree that gets even bigger when she dreams up an abducting plot , its a fast road to ruin.
They're joined by nefarious criminal Alvin Karpis who doesn't appear at the movie.This is a perverse stew of murders, pronounced bloodshed, sentimental blood bonding, action , lots of violence and with a bullet-ridden ending .
This film is Roger Corman and Sam Arkoff's answer to "Bonnie and Clyde".
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).
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.
Trashy gangster picture from Roger Corman about Ma Barker and her criminal sons.
Violent Fun. A gleefully trashy Corman cheapie, with Shelley Winters as the sex-crazed head of a family of criminals.
Very bloody and perverse, yet strangely campy, and with good support from Bruce Dern, Robert DeNiro and Don Stroud, in a brilliantly sadistic role.
Fun movie about a gun toting Ozark clan that rebels against their Depression-era poverty by stealing, threatening, robbing banks, kidnapping, and killing their way into infamy.
The clan's leader is colorful Ma (Kate) Barker (Shelley Winters), self-confident, forceful, and determined to get some high-style living for her and her four boys, whatever is required.Interspersed through the plot are real-life B&W flashbacks to the 1920s and 30s, which enhance a sense of realism, as does the casting of non-actors in minor roles in some scenes.
The rich men was jumpin' out of the windows and, as usual, they fell on the poor".In addition to clever dialogue, Shelley Winters makes the film fun, mostly as a result of her over-the-top Southern accent.
But it's a fun movie and worth watching, mostly for the entertaining performance of Shelley Winters..
I watched BLOODY MAMA because I love Shelley Winters and wanted to see where Robert De Niro started as an actor.
Aside from the scene when Shelley robs a bank and forces old ladies to hang on to their car and the subsequent car chase, seeing the old ladies hang for dear life, which I admit was really fun, this film is totally forgettable..
Though Bloody Mama has very little to do with Ma Barker and the four fine strapping sons she raised, the film provides Shelley Winters with a role she can overact to her heart's content and no one would notice this side of a slasher flick.
It's part that I wish Shelley had done in a more factual retelling of the Barker saga.She gave her four sons played by Don Stroud, Clint Kimbrough, Robert Walden, and Robert DeNiro the lack of character and amoral view of life that led them to become criminals, she herself simply went along for the ride on their criminal enterprises.
Another is Pat Hingle playing a kidnap victim of the gang's and a third is Diane Varsi who marries one of the Barker sons.Roger Corman who produced and directed Bloody Mama gave Shelley Winters a great part and she ran with it.
I find that classics like Bloody Mama are so fun because the director and actors are aware that the film is not Oscar-caliber but still have fun with it.
I would also like to point out that the always great Don Stroud has said in interviews that he had an intense affair with Shelley Winters during the filming of Bloody Mama.
Roger Corman directed this...it seems like he was actually trying to do a serious movie...sadly, it doesn't work at all.
For instance, the opening scene has a young girl (about 13) being held down by her brothers while her father rapes her!This is ALMOST worth seeing to see Shelley Winters chewing the scenery as Ma and Robert DeNiro before he hit it big.All in all, a must miss..
It also has some good acting from the likes of Shelley Winters,Robert DeNiro,Don Stroud and Bruce Dern.This Roger Corman directed crime film tells the story of real-life Ma Barker and her boys who ran a crime spree in the 1930's.
Though Corman's film obviously does not have the wit or the style of Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" it holds one's interest with bloody sensationalism.
As for "Bloody Mama," well, I have a word for movies like this: CRAP!It is supposedly based on a true story, but I doubt that more than half of it actually happened.
I think Corman wanted this scene to be sad, but I just laughed.But really, there is no reason to watch "Bloody Mama".
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.
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.
Bloody Mama is directed by Roger Corman and written by Don Peters and Robert Thom.
It stars Shelley Winters, Bruce Dern, Don Stroud, Robert De Niro, Diane Varsi, Robert Walden and Pat Hingle.
Alonzo.Story is loosely based on the infamous Kate "Ma" Barker, who along with her sons would cause criminal carnage wherever they went."I told my boys to just rob banks and stay out of trouble" Very much coming off like the bastard son of Bonnie and Clyde, Bloody Mama finds Roger Corman on devilish form.
It's often thrilling and unnerving, and with Corman blending newsreel footage of the era with the fact the pic is filmed on location in Arkansas, there's an earthy docu style feel to the tale - even if as a history lesson it's hokey at best.Not everybody's idea of enjoyment but from that chilling opening to the blood and thunder of the finale, Bloody Mama holds court with shifty glee.
Edgar Hoover's newly formed F.B.I., director Roger Corman reverses the familiar pre-credits text by stating 'any similarity to Kate Barker and her sons is intentional." The truth is that the real Ma Barker had very little to do with the organisation of her family's criminal activities, but Corman gives her to Shelley Winters who grabs the role and runs away with it.
But Corman does something that is rarely done and delves into the psychology of these gangsters, and, although it's hardly Freud, comes up with some interesting and uncomfortable answers.Leaving her home and husband in Arkansas, Ma Barker and her four sons - the towering brute Herman (Don Stroud), the practical Arthur (Clint Kimbrough), the submissive, bisexual Fred (Robert Walden), and the quiet, drug-addled Lloyd (Robert De Niro) - embark on a petty crime spree on the command of Ma. Herman and Fred find themselves locked away for petty theft, and inside, Fred is dominated by the violent Kevin (Bruce Dern), who joins Ma and her boys when they are released from prison.
Bonnie and Clyde was a big hit in 1967, and I don't doubt that Hollywood's great money-spinner, Roger Corman, had that on his mind when he decided to direct a film based on another of America's great crime legends.
Corman's directing style is very cold and despite excellent performances from the cast - the film fails to be involving and nobody really steps up to take the 'antihero' role effectively.
Corman has got himself together a good cast of actors; chief among them obviously being Shelly Winters.
The rest of the cast is fine too, featuring good performances from the likes of Don Stroud and Bruce Dern, as well an early performance from the great Robert DeNiro.
"Bloody Mama" is an early '70s exploitation shocker with a crazy Shelley Winters as the unattractive lead and a young Robert de Niro and younger Bruce Dern as members of her criminal brood.The movie really just feels like an assortment of shocking moments, which are, after all, not shocking enough to recommend to hardcore exploitation fans.
It's more about intimations of disturbing material, like the movie's opening scene featuring a flashback to Ma Barker's childhood, showing her pursued and held down by her brothers in the woods, presumably to rape her.Later, with the killing and crime spree properly underway, it is implied that Ma has sexual relationships with all of her sons.Actually relatively little time is spent showing the robberies the Barker brood committed.
More time is spent with her repulsive sons as they use drugs, rape girls, and feed a piglet to an alligator - though none of this is depicted as much as distressingly implied.What we're left with, then, is a movie that isn't extreme enough to satisfy exploitation fans, and doesn't give de Niro or Dern enough to do to be interesting to fans of either..
'Bloody Mama' is low budgeted gangster film directed by Roger Corman.
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.
It was, and it makes it a Stand-Out Cult Movie because of it.Shelley Winters is Perfectly Cast and Lights Up the Screen with Her Demented Character alongside an Early Robert DeNiro as a Drug Addled Glue Sniffer and Heroin Injector.
Pat Hingle, as a Depression Era Millionaire, also does Good Work as Corman's Answer to the Decades Hypocrisy.The Violence of the Title, is Slowly Paced, Culminating in a Guns Blazing Shootout Ending.
Senseless and Sadistic Murders combined with two Early Rape Scenes sets the Stage for Incest, and other Abnormalities.Probably Corman's most Offensive Films, it is Considered one of His Best in some circles.
Bloody Mama (1970) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Roger Corman directed this Depression era film about Ma Barker (Shelley Winters) and her four sons who go on a crime spree.
I've been wanting to see this film for quite some time since it features a young Robert DeNiro playing one of the sons.
The best part of the film is Winters who really sinks her teeth into the role and perfectly captures Barker's craziness as well as her tenderness with her sons.
The supporting cast is very good with DeNiro, Bruce Dern, Don Stroud, Clint Kimbrough, Robert Walden, Alex Nicol and Scatman Crothers.
Stroud gives a very intense and thoughtful performance.Winters is way, way over the top (and her hair color varies wildly throughout the film at inappropriate times.) She indulges herself in some extreme Method acting which isn't always pretty to watch, though she does catch one's attention.
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.
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.
Still any movie with this cast is worth seeing at least once if you're a film buff.
The main reason to see Bloody Mama of course is Shelley Winters as Ma Barker.
I cannot recommend it, unless you're a die-hard fan of Roger Corman or Shelley Winters.
This Roger Corman "exploitation" flick was great drive-in material, basically inaccurate much of the time, but a wonderful cast and plenty of 30's violence.
Shelley Winters was born to play Ma Barker and other sons, especially Don Stroud (fine actor) were on the money.A 5 out of 10.
Films like this were made tongue-in-cheek so don't expect BONNIE & CLYDE or an accurate portrayal of the Barker gang.
Having praised Corman as a brilliant director (and equally great producer), I must say that I consider "Bloody Mama" of 1970 to be an entertaining film, but definitely not one of Roger's best.
The film is a True-Crime Drama set in the 1930s when the Barker brothers and their bloody Mama were on a crime spree throughout various southern States.
Even though gangsters are the central characters in "Bloody Mama", the film makes no attempt to romanticize a life of crime or to make the viewer sympathize with the criminals.
Not that the performances are bad, but with a cast like the one in "Bloody Mama" I would have expected more.
Young Robert De Niro, who plays one of the Barker brothers, delivers a great performance as always, and Pat Hingle is also very good in a smaller role.
Don Stroud did not impress me as the eldest son, and neither did Bruce Dern, who is usually a very good actor.
The real Ma Barker was (with the utmost probability) not the criminal mastermind she is depicted as in the film, but just an elderly woman who tried to protect her criminal sons.Even though "Bloody Mama" has its faults, however, it is highly recommendable to lovers of crime flicks, and interesting enough for any cineaste to enjoy.
Which would be, of course, none.This movie takes a lot of liberties with the Barker Gang story, as one might expect.
Shelly Winters looks like a confused old woman in the film (made when she was only 50) and her acting is just dreadful.the historical Ma Barker, by the way, was probably not even a criminal, her reputation was enhanced to allow the FBI to deflect from the fact they shot a 62 year old woman.Again, it's Roger Corman.
The late, great, sorely missed Shelley Winters really lets it all hang out with her savage, forceful and brave portrayal of notorious Depression-era crime matron Kate "Ma" Barker, who along with her twisted sons embarks on a wild anything-goes crime spree in the Deep South.
Bloody Mama is a dramatic feature that is loosely based on the real story of Ma Barker,a corrupt mother who encourages and organizes her children's criminal activities.It stars Shelley Winters in the title role together with Bruce Dern,Don Stroud,Diane Varsi,Robert De Niro, Robert Walden and Pat Hingle.The film was directed by Roger Corman.The movie starts as young Kate Barker is brutalized by her father and older brothers, who rape her.
They did it to build a fortune during the late 1920's when the United States was suffering from The Great Depression.This is obviously a gangster film.By today's standards,it is dated but nevertheless,it still manages to be fun and entertaining especially when we see good performances from the cast like Shelley Winters and the young Robert De Niro.It could have been a great classic gangster film probably similar to Bonnie And Clyde if only it had a better script instead of an underdeveloped screenplay.
Roger Corman, who specialized in low budget films show an ambitious side in directing "Bloody Mama" a sort of loosely based biographic picture about the criminal family that terrorized rural America during the Great Depression.
Shelley Winters, who played Ma Barker, made a terrific contribution to our enjoyment.
Don Stroud, Clint Kimbrough, Robert Walden and a young Robert Deniro are seen as the four sons.
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.
Shelley Winters stars as Ma Barker who, with her perverted, animalistic and sadistic sons, goes around the country robbing, raping and killing.