BLOODY MAMA

US, 1970, 90 minutes, Colour.
Shelley Winters, Pat Hingle, Don Stroud, Diane Varsi, Bruce Dern, Clint Kimbrough, Robert de Niro, Robert Waldon, Alex Nicholl, Pamela Dunlap, Scatman Crothers.
Directed by Roger Corman.

Bloody Mama is something of a classic by Roger Corman. Corman had begun film-making in the 1950s with small-budget genre pictures. They were inexpensive, had little-known casts, but were done with flair as well as tongue-in-cheek. Some of them seem very good in retrospect – while others seem more than absurd.

By 1970 Corman had built up quite a reputation and made some much more upmarket films like The Red Baron and The St Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Corman continued making films, mainly producing in the succeeding decades but also made a number of screen appearances including the 2003 The Manchurian Candidate. However, he is very much remembered as giving a start to many classic directors including Jonathan Demme and Martin Scorsese. It is significant that Robert de Niro appears in this film in a small role. The film was made by American International Pictures who, like Corman, were making small-budget exploitation films. However, they sometimes made classics like Wild in the Streets.

Shelley Winters is quite striking as Ma Barker, the mother of a gang of criminals who flourished during the Depression. Another film on this story, Big Bad Mama with Angie Dickinson, also appeared soon after Bloody Mama.

1. The quality of this film as about the Depression and its gangsters? The particular genre and its appeal, qualities?

2. The emphasis of the title? Shelley Winters’ portrayal, impact? Ma Barker in her time, her reputation, the legend? Admiration or humour?

3. The film's use of colour, the credits sequence? guns, re-creation of the thirties in its places, cars, the towns, the countryside? The songs and the ballads? The credits’ song? What did the film celebrate? Attack?

4. The portrayal of society in the thirties? The picture of America? Its ills? An American society that had formed Ma Barker and her sons? The corruption of society and its need to change? The Barkers’ challenge to this society and attempt to change? Defeated by this society? In what sense were the Barkers heroic, even in their crimes?

5. The importance of the background of Ma? The visualising of her as a girl, the effect of rape on her? The significance of her childhood and its effect on her later career, and on her children?

6. George Barker? Why was he so ineffectual? His way of life and work? His fathering children? Lack of influence on them? The reasons for Ma leaving him? Her love and her lack of love?

7. What kind of person was Ma? How well delineated was her character? Her obsession about life and her sons, Her relationship with each of her sons? The possessive love? Her violence, her erratic character, her lack of moral scruple and conscience, her treatment of people, for example, the two women on the car during the escape? Her notoriety with guns and clothes? Headline seeking?

8. How did the film portray and explain her attitude to life? Her expectations of what life owed her? Its influence on her sons?

9. The film's detailed portrayal of the robberies and their style? The family involvement? The reputation and notoriety?

10. How well drawn were the sons? Herman as the eldest, his violence and obsession? Sexuality and his relationship with Mona? Lloyd and his weakness, drugs, rape, his death? Arthur as a weaker and gentler person? His devotion to his mother? His death? Fred and his erratic nature? the prison term and his masochistic relationship with Kevin, homosexuality? How clear were their personalities? Their loyalty to their mother, love? Their violence? Lack of moral scruple?

11. Kevin and his role in the film? His insinuating relationship with Freddie? His being welcomed into the gang? His personality and holdover them all? With Ma? His place in their gang? The fact that he was shot by Ma?

12. The personality of Mona, her drifting into this family? Her pregnancy, relationship with the other brothers? Her being used and her wanting to be used? How strong a person? Why did she leave?

13. The importance of the sequences with Rembrandt? The violence of the rape, effect on her and her fear? Horror of her death? Ma’s influence on her death and her sons’ reactions? The solemnity of her being placed in the lake?

14. The change of mood with the kidnapping of Pendlebury? Its details, its feeling, his being blindfolded, imprisoned?

15. The importance of Pendlebury's personality? Why was he kidnapped? His attitude towards the kidnapping?

16. Pendlebury’s effect on them all? His relationship with Ma? The boys liking him? A substitute father figure? Ma’s cruelty in wanting him killed? The boys letting him go? This act of defiance as putting Ma in a secondary position?

17. Why did the interrelationships in the family and the gang break down? The change to Florida? The quietness of hunting alligators? The pathos of Lloyd’s death?

18. Was it inevitable that the film should end in a hail of' bullets? The violence of the siege? The number of G-men and their violence? Ma shooting Kevin, Freddie’s erratic death? Arthur protecting his mother? The horror of Herman's suicide?

19. What do films like this achieve? In presentation of a period visually? In reminding Americans of their heritage? Of interest to overseas audiences in understanding America and its values?