Review of Big Bad Mama (1974) by Kristal C — 23 Jan 2011

The National Media Museum (Bradford) has taken to exhuming best-left-dead 'cult' films in something it calls 'From The Vault'. On a chilly January evening various men of a certain age assembled in the Cubby Broccoli cinema to be variously bemused and titillated by a film chiefly remembered for exposing more of Angie Dickinson's flesh than any other. To my lasting shame, I was also there. A Roger Corman hastily-assembled rip-off of 'Bonnie and Clyde', by way of the Keystone Kops and 'Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill'.

Tom Skerritt shows up in an early role. William Shatner turns up essentially playing himself as William J. Baxter, in an acting masterclass that would see him slide effortlessly into his upcoming role as T. J. Hooker. The scene where he is in bed behind an unclothed Angie and sliding his hands lasciviously all over her body with a grotesque leer, but has obviously been told to keep his hands off her baps, is an unintentional comic gem. Many good directors started with Corman and his quota quickies : Scorsese, Demme. Steve Carver here shows an ineptitude that made me check out his later career. Nothing of note. I left the cinema feeling slightly grubby.