F.B.I. e la banda degli angeli

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!

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.

Although I would not recommend that kids watch this, this is a fun low-budget movie for those of you in the mood for something, let's say, trashy. Yes, it's definitely trashy. Angie gets naked - I mean really naked - and she's not the only one. Also there's lots of guns being fired and whatnot, but you probably won't notice them too much. Captain Kirk and the guy from Picket Fences appear as sometime lovers of Ms. Dickinson, but it's at its core just a simple tale of a mama and her two daughters, trying to make their way in this crazy world.

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.

Big Bad Mama (1974)

*** (out of 4)

Angie Dickinson got the role of her career playing the title character, a Texas mother of two teenage girls (Susan Sennett, Robbie Lee) who grows tired of being poor and decides to turn to robbery. Along the way she picks up a couple different men (William Shatner, Tom Skerritt) as they head towards California to make it rich. If you're easily offended then this might not be the movie for you but if you like sex, bloody violence, nudity, threesomes with sisters, robberies and just about every other sinful thing in the world then BIG BAD MAMA is just the film for you. I don't think there's any question that this here is one of the greatest drive-in movies ever made and from the opening dialogue where Dickinson is wondering why her "angels" turned out so "wrong" the film just delivers one great thing after another. Of course, those expecting CITIZEN KANE are going to be disappointed but to this day I can't see why certain film buffs go into every movie expecting a masterpiece. Some movies need to win Oscars and others like this one just need to be entertaining. It's very clear that the writers, the director and producer Roger Corman wanted to throw just about everything into this film that they possibly could. One of the big selling points in having someone like Dickinson appear in a movie like this and her presence certainly adds a lot. I'm sure most of her fans will be downright shocked to see her appearing in several sex scenes and she's nude for three different scenes including one full frontal. In interviews she has said that she wanted to show off her body and it's easy to see why. Dickinson is so good in the role that you can't help but love her character and the toughness she brings to it. Both Sennett and Lee are good looking in their parts. Those expecting great performances are going to be disappointed but I think both actresses delivered just what the film needed in terms of good humor. Shatner and Skerritt are both very entertaining in their roles and Corman regular Dick Miller plays a nice part as well. Considering how low of a budget this movie had it's rather shocking to see how good the costumes are and the period detail is really terrific because you feel as if it's really the 1930s. Director Carver does a very good job at keeping everything going at a nice pace as the 82-minute running time goes by without a problem. BIG BAD MAMA didn't win any Oscars when it was released but all these years later the charm is still there and it certainly deserves its reputation as one of the best drive-in flicks of the era.