Bloody Mama | |
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Directed by | Roger Corman |
Starring | Shelley Winters |
Release date(s) | March 24, 1970 |
Running time | 90 min. |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Bloody Mama is a 1970 low budget film very loosely based on the story of Ma Barker. It was directed by Roger Corman and starred Shelley Winters in the title role, depicted as a corrupt mother who encourages and organizes her children's criminality. The film featured an early appearance by a young Robert De Niro as Lloyd Barker. In reality, Ma Barker's involvement in criminality was fairly limited.
In 2008, Bloody Mama was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Gangster Films list.[1]
Contents |
Plot
The film starts as young Kate Barker (Lisa Jill) is brutalized by others, including her father and older brothers. Skipping forward 35 years, the middle-aged Kate 'Ma' Barker (Shelly Winters) brutalizes innocent people and robs 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 DeNiro). 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 (patterned after gunman Alvin Karpis, played by 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.
Another time later, the gang arrives in Tennessee where they abduct a wealthy businessman named Sam Pendlebury (Pat Hingle) (patterned after brewery owner William Hamm whom the Barker gang kidnapped in 1933). 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 the safety for hers and Herman's unborn child. But Herman and Kevin give away their hiding place one day when 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.
Cast
- Shelley Winters (Kate "Ma" Barker)
- Lisa Jill (Young Kate)
- Bruce Dern (Kevin)
- Don Stroud (Herman)
- Robert Walden (Fred)
- Alex Nicol (George, Kate's Husband)
- Robert DeNiro (Lloyd)
- Pat Hingle (Sam Pendlebury)
- Clint Kimbrough (Arthur)
- Diane Varsi (Mona Gibson)