Crazy Mama/The Lady In Red + Big Bad
Mama/Big Bad Mama II (Roger Corman/Shout! Factory DVD Double Feature sets)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Films: C+
In real
life, there was once a dangerous gangster named Ma Barker and she was one of the
most famous criminals during The Great Depression. As the counterculture revisited her in the
media of the 1970s and 1970s, her legend led to some great roles for some name
actresses. Shelley Winters played a
variant of her with much vim and vigor on the Adam West Batman series, but Roger Corman was determined to do even
more. Three of four films in two Double
Feature DVDs from Shout! Factory offer his best attempts and another related
gem.
First we
get Crazy Mama, as played by the
great Cloris Leachman in 1975, already riding a wave of success that included The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Last Picture Show. She has a mother (Ann Southern) and daughter
(Linda Purl) who are one happy family… until their beauty shop is repossessed
and hell hath no fury like women who have their beauty means taken away. Their solution is to go on a robbery spree
and the authorities eventually have to go and stop them. Jonathan Demme (The Silence Of The Lambs) directed and the good supporting cast
includes Donnie Most (Purl’s future co-star on Happy Days and a better actor than he ever got credit for), Stuart
Whitman and Jim Backus. This is a fun
film that has been saved and preserved, looking better than any footage I have
ever seen of it before.
Also
added is The Lady In Red (1979), an
interesting, underrated version of the rise and fall of John Dillinger (Robert
Conrad of Wild, Wild West an unusual
choice that works more than you would expect) as the title refers to the woman
(Pamela Sue Martin of Dynasty and
the most successful Nancy Drew yet) who eventually gave him up, Polly
Franklin. Polly goes from crime to a
wacky prison stint to potential hooker to his woman during (yup) The Great
Depression. Louise Fletcher and
Christopher Lloyd are among the decent supporting cast and despite aging oddly,
this is one of Corman’s best.
We next
look at the two films with Angie Dickinson that also trades off on the
legend. Big Bad Mama (1976) and the belated-but-not-bad Big Bad Mama II (1987) in which she
plays Wilma McClatchie, who moves from bootlegging while the country is still
dry to bank robbing. Steve Carver
directed the first film with William Shatner, Sally Kirkland, Dick Miller and
Tom Skerritt. It has energy, attitude
and is fun. The second film was helmed
by Jim Wynorski and has Robert Culp, Bruce Glover, Ebbe Roe Smith, Danielle
Brisebois, Jeff Yagher and Julie McCullough with some highlights, but seems a
little more closed off and less effective than the original. Still, it is amusing at times just the same.
They are
all worth a look and these new editions have been upgraded to include extras,
better sound and better picture. All are
featured in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 transfers and have never looked
better outside of theaters, though there are still detail limits and the age of
the prints. All also have Dolby Digital
2.0 Mono, save the barely stereophonic Mama
II, but they all also have distortion and show their age.
Extras on
all films include audio commentary tracks and theatrical trailers. Crazy
adds TV Spots and on-camera interviews on the film with Demme and Corman. Lady
adds a second commentary track with Producer Julie Corman and Writer John
Sayles, joining the first with Director Lewis Teague and Actor Robert
Forster. Mama adds TV Spots, Leonard Maltin interviewing Corman, on-camera
interviews with Corman, Director Steve Carver, Dickinson and Writer Frances
Doel. Mama II adds another Maltin/Corman interview and new interview with
Glover.
- Nicholas Sheffo
