Bloody Mama

What hoists the picture into real substance toward the home stretch is an eerie and fascinating by credible sequence with the Barker clan holding as captive a blindfolded millionaire, strongly played by Pat Hingle.

A lurid gothic gangster psychodrama from Roger Corman, this is Shelley Winters’ finest hour-and-a-half, cast as Arizona Clark ‘Ma’ Barker, a role it would be impossible to overplay.

Despite such sleazy subject matter, the cast is outstanding, dominated by a fierce Shelley Winters, and Corman pulls no punches, delivering a searing Jacobean tragedy of a gangster movie.

The best performance in the film, and one of the most outstanding screen portrayals in many moons, is that of Pat Hingle, playing a wealthy businessman kidnapped for high ransom.

Roger Corman's 1970 retelling of the story of Ma Barker and her three loony sons in Depression-era America is completely out of control, but the smash-and-grab stylistics are exhilarating.

It's fun for awhile, but soon the sheer lunacy of it all wears thin as Corman keeps trying to top himself.