'BIG BAD MAMA'.........STRIPPED DOWN AND CORMAN-IZED FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT.......

Big Bad Mama (1974)   A funny thing when we're watching one of producer-director Roger Corman's slapdash,throwaway, shot-in-20-days-or-less exploitationers........

                    For Corman, it's always about pumpin' out fast junk for a quick buck.........but damned if there aren't always little moments when some smidge of artistic quality rears its surprising head....

                      Purely accidental, of course. Nobody here tried intentionally  to make a good movie.......(their primary goal: get it shot in 2 and a half weeks and into the drive-ins a few weeks later).....but every so often......both shit and art just happen side by side......

                     For this one, Corman decreed a breathless slam-banger that rips off both Bonnie And Clyde and their clothing........ all at the same time.......

                     So not only do you get 'B & C's banjo strummin', machine gun blastin' chases in vintage cars......everybody gets naked too. Whoopie.

                      Steve Carver, Corman's designated director for this,surely found himself two good sports in no less than Angie Dickinson and William Shatner.......with a young Tom Skerritt thrown in for romantic-triangle complications.

                      And toss in nubile starlets Susan Sennett and Robbie Lee as Dickinson's hot-to-trot daughters..... you've got 90 minutes of pulp heaven........bullets, babes, breasts......and Shatner strutting around as if they found him in an amateur theater production of "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof'....

                      We hope we're still alive 'n well when somebody writes the definitive reference work on Corman's countless movies........with their their mad, mad populations of up-and-coming, eventual cinema icons mixed with veteran performers and filmmakers on their way to the grave........all of them coming together for that singularly wonderful task of making a movie........

                       It's a waste time to do a serious critique of 'Big Bad Mama'........it was made for the pure fun of it.......and to fatten Corman's bank account so he could grind out 10 more just like it......

                        Which he always did, bless 'im.

                      In that' regard, it's a winner all the way.  3 stars (***).......put your brain on 'hold' and chomp down on it like an order of super-sized fries. Yeh, it's not good for you, but.....hmm  fun while it lasts.......