Bloody Mama is a 1970 American low-budget drama film directed by Roger Corman and starring Shelley Winters in the title role. It was very loosely based on the real story of Ma Barker, who is depicted as a corrupt mother who encourages and organizes her children's criminality; in reality, Ma Barker's involvement in criminality was fairly limited. The film features an early appearance by a young Robert De Niro as Lloyd Barker.
In 2008, Bloody Mama was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Gangster Films list. Corman says the film is one of his favourites.Synopsis
Young Kate Barker (Lisa Jill) is brutalized by her father and older brothers, who rape her. Thirty-five years later, the middle-aged Kate 'Ma' Barker (Shelley Winters) now brutalizes innocent people herself, while indulging her monstrous sexual appetites. She lives by robbing banks with her four sons; the pragmatic Arthur (Clint Kimbrough), the sadistic Herman (Don Stroud), the bisexual Fred (Robert Walden), and the loyal, drug-addicted Lloyd (Robert De Niro). It all begins in the late 1920s when Ma leaves her husband, George, and her Arkansas home and embarks on her own with her four sons on a robbery-murder spree to make her own fortune, while keeping them under a tight leash.
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