“You gotta believe… You gotta have faith… But first, you gotta get rid of the witnesses!” After coming off two years of uncredited work and one misfire (Target: Harry, under a pseudonym), director Roger Corman returned at full-throttle with this Depression-era gangster saga about female gang boss Ma Barker, played to the hilt by Shelley Winters. Corman receives top-notch help from maverick screenwriter Robert Thom (Wild in the Streets; Angel, Angel Down We Go) who supplies a script that hews slightly closer to the facts than other previous cinematic accounts. Still, plenty of out-of-left-field perversion pops up in the form of incest, sadistic sex, drug addiction and suicide by machine gun (!) in this continuously entertaining, ultra-violent tall tale. Ma’s family and hangers-on consist of an up-and-coming stellar group (Don Stroud, Robert De Niro, Bruce Dern, Robert Walden, Diane Varsi), plus more sterling support from Pat Hingle, Scatman Crothers and Alex Nicol.
“Completely out of control, but the smash-and-grab stylistics are exhilarating. Lots of violence and weird sexual innuendo, backed by a big, blustery performance from Shelley Winters as Ma and a young supporting cast to whom time has been very kind.” – David Kehr, The Chicago Reader
