Big Bad Mama (1974)

Free Great Movies Review

  •  (3 out of 5 stars)

Big Bad Mama (1974) is a light-hearted, brisk-paced exploitation flick from Roger Corman's New World Pictures. This Depression-era crime movie stars Angie Dickinson as the Big Bad Mama toting a Tommy gun, along with her two teenage daughters played by Robbie Lee and Susan Sennett. They take off from Texas to California, getting into all sorts of trouble from bootlegging to stripping to bank robbery. An agent played by Dick Miller and his partner are half-heartedly chasing them all along the way. Eventually, Dickinson meets Tom Skerritt during a bank heist and they begin a passionate love affair. Then William Shatner shows up at a horse race and Dickinson has a love affair with him. Tom Skerritt then opts to make love with Dickinson's daughters. What the movie lacks in violence it makes up for in ample nudity. This wild love circle doesn't produce any drama as everyone is generally fine with sleeping with everyone else. Fun bluegrass banjo music accompanies them throughout the whole movie. It's like Bonnie and Clyde (1967) without any of the artistry or social commentary. Angie Dickinson would return in Big Bad Mama II (1987).

(Summary by FreeGreatMovies.com)