Las temerarias - Angie y sus rebeldes

This movie is definitely one of the standouts when discussing 70s sexploitation...a very entertaining 30s rural gangster film; sex and violence at its best. Accept the film as trashy fun and you'll be fine.

The 1930's where America was at its worst:The Great Depression, The Dust Bowl in the Midwest. Hard times was at its worst, especially for Wilma(Angle Dickinson) and her two daughters BilliyJean(Susan Sennett) and Polly(Robbie Lee). Tired of being poor, they head out West to make a living. They come across Wilma's bootlegging lover(Noble Willingham) at a church to attend Polly's wedding which never takes place because Mama objects the man and his family. They would later find new partners in crime after Uncle Barney gets killed by the Feds. They would me etc a bank robber(Tom Skerritt) and a gambler(William Shatner) . Think they can pull it off? Of course. "Big Bad Mama" packs a lot in this movie: Laughs, drama, romance, even gunfire. No one has been left out of the fun. Billy Jean is the tough older daughter, while Polly is the very hormonally, emotional one. They did give the bank robber some lover while Wilma did the gambler. I heard that this almost got an Oscar nomination, but the silliness gave it a nod. I say, "It's good!" Silly or not, its a great movie. Great for late night viewing. 4 out of 5 stars

Crashing cars, splatter guns, sex and nudity—whatever else about Roger Corman, he never made a boring movie, and this one seldom lets up. Take Wilma (Dickinson) and her two hormonal daughters. When they're not sticking a .45 in some moneyman's hapless face, they're stripping down for extra-curricular action. Lucky Skerritt and Shatner, except Skerritt's strictly low-class, while Shatner's a little short in the guts department. But Wilma's got high-class aspirations. So, being a hardscrabble, rural woman, she robs folks out in the open instead of behind boardroom doors.

But note the people she robs. All are pillars of what the counter-cultural 70's would call the "establishment". There's the huckstering preacher, the mortgage bankers, the boozy American Legion, and finally the wealthy snobs who think they are the "better people". In fact, their talk about not taxing the better people sounds almost contemporary. Note too that it's the high-class pretender Shatner who double-crosses the others. Yes indeed, screenwriter Norton may have been blacklisted in the 50's, but the political echoes continue

There's no room here for nuance or lengthy dialog. These folks don't waste time talking when there's another bank to rob or another car to crash. It's strictly the fast life for Wilma and her brood. Note how Mom sabotages daughter Polly's wedding, saying Polly'll only wind up on a poor farm with a bunch of skinny kids. That's probably some insight into those bank-robbing desperadoes of the Dust Bowl '30's. And so, America's back-handed liking for up-front outlaws like Wilma and Co. gets another jazzy installment.

I rented this movie because it was the kind of campy silly movie that Roger Corman is famous for. I watched and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was still interesting and Angie Dickinson at 43, was better looking then most of today's young starlets. The sex was way over the top but it was the seventies. William Shatner in some of the more racy scenes was worthy of America's Funniest Videos (R-Rated). All in all it was a good for it's time and if you are in your 40s like me, it will make you remember when cheesy movies were truly cheesy. Enjoy!

The first Big Bad Mama is a favorite of collectors of celebrity nude scenes - Angie Dickinson has couple - and it's not a bad movie for what it is. It's a quickie Bonnie and Clyde wannabe on a much lower budget and a much shorter shooting schedule. The story is nothing special - Depression era criminals plot a kidnapping which goes predictably bad - but the low budget was well used, the production looks decent enough and Angie, Tom Skerritt and Bill Shatner all contribute solid perfs with little help from a largely illiterate script. Angie looks good and seems to be enjoying herself in a rare bad girl role, and there are enough car chases and shoot-outs to keep the viewer from falling asleep, but don't look for too much in the way of originality here.