"Blood's thicker than water," explains Shelley Winters' pious and psychotic Ma Barker. Based extremely loosely on the exploits of Ma Barker and her sons, who went on a crime spree during the 1920's and was chased by J. Edgar Hoover's newly formed F.B.I., director Roger Corman reverses the familiar pre-credits text by stating 'any similarity to Kate Barker and her sons is intentional." The truth is that the real Ma Barker had very little to do with the organisation of her family's criminal activities, but Corman gives her to Shelley Winters who grabs the role and runs away with it. This is a loud, crude, violent film, about a bunch of despicable characters. But Corman does something that is rarely done and delves into the psychology of these gangsters, and, although it's hardly Freud, comes up with some interesting and uncomfortable answers.
Leaving her home and husband in Arkansas, Ma Barker and her four sons - the towering brute Herman (Don Stroud), the practical Arthur (Clint Kimbrough), the submissive, bisexual Fred (Robert Walden), and the quiet, drug-addled Lloyd (Robert De Niro) - embark on a petty crime spree on the command of Ma. Herman and Fred find themselves locked away for petty theft, and inside, Fred is dominated by the violent Kevin (Bruce Dern), who joins Ma and her boys when they are released from prison. As their notoriety grows, the family kidnap wealthy businessman Sam (Pat Hingle) and hold him for ransom. When the boys start bonding with the father figure, cracks begin to appear in the gang.
On the surface this is just a cheap exploitation film made the master of the quickie, but it has recently received some acclaim for its unorthodox portrayal of its ugly characters. There's more than a hint of incest that runs throughout the film, conveyed in Ma's hyper-sexual activity and Herman's hesitation to leave his mother's breast. It is also often quite disturbing, as the lengths that Ma will go to in order to protect her sons becomes evident as she drowns an innocent young woman who Lloyd rapes. The performances are noticeably excellent too, especially Winters, who gives Ma a vulnerability in her need to have strong men around her, and Dern, who is creepy as the alpha-male whose sexual preferences is somewhat questionable. This is one of the finest examples of Corman's skill as a director, using limited resources to create a genre film that still stands out in a crowded marketplace, never ashamed to embrace it's exploitation roots, but bold enough to dig that little bit deeper.
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