Crazy Mama

This lively celebration of 1950's America is one of director Jonathan Demme's earliest and best films. After losing their beauty salon to some repossession men in California, grandmother Ann Sothern, mother Cloris Leachman, and daughter Linda Purl hit the road and embark on a crime spree, robbing and shooting their way back to their mid-western roots in Arkansas. CRAZY MAMA recreates a convincing '50's atmosphere, offers some of that decade's greatest music and, above all, features excellent performances by a wonderful cast. The film's brightest moments are supplied by Cloris Leachman and Ann Sothern, two of the finest actresses to ever grace the screen. Sothern's daughter, the equally gifted Tisha Sterling, plays her mother's character as a young woman in the opening scene of the film.

Entertaining 1950s era ganster mama movie emulates the best points of Corman's previous depression-era genre films. Demme does a solid job, succeeding particularly well in creating a feeling of casual cameraderie among the bandit women and the men they drag along with them as they go on a spree enroute to the family farm in Arkansas. Creates reasonably good characters who are often not used to their full potential, but a good time film (good 6 pack film) is the result. Leachman and Sothern make an effective pairing, and castaway Jim Backus makes a brief appearance as the first of many men the trio of Southern beauties will take advantage of along the way to their broken down dreamland.

Apparently, Roger Corman likes it when "Happy Days" cast members hot rod across the country (he was involved in "Grand Theft Auto", directed by and starring Ron Howard, and co-starring Marion Ross). In "Crazy Mama", Cloris Leachman plays Melba, a woman who runs a beauty parlor in Long Beach with her mother Sheba (Ann Sothern) and daughter Cheryl (Linda Purl) in 1958. Their Arkansas farm was repossessed by the banks in 1932. When slimy banker Mr. Albertson (Jim Backus) tries to repossess their beauty parlor, they decide to return to Arkansas with Cheryl's boyfriend Shawn (Don Most). So begins a crazy car chase across America. In Las Vegas, Melba falsely marries a man (Stuart Whitman) to make it look like she's married, and they also get greaser Snake (Bryan Englund, Leachman's real-life son) to go along. In the process of everything, a lot of cars get wrecked and some people get killed.

I will admit that this is a pretty silly movie, but it is so fun! I never would have guessed that Ralph Malph and Thurston Howell III had ever co-starred in a movie (by the way, Linda Purl also starred on "Happy Days"). And the fact that they all co-starred with Frau Blucher just adds to the wacky factor. Oh, and by the way, B-movie character actor Dick Miller plays a cop. Jonathan Demme just always seems to have something good up his sleeve.

Any movie that opens with a montage with typically nostalgic images of life in the 1950's, and to the wondrous tunes of "All I have to do is Dream" by The Everly Brothers, is half of a winner already in my book. I instantly presumed that Jonathan Demme's "Crazy Mama" would become a massively entertaining 70's road-movie/parody exploitation flick, full of memorable highlights and delightfully eccentric characters, but that turned out a little bit disappointing to be entirely honest. The movie kicks off energetically and tremendously joyous, but runs out of steam surprisingly fast. When evicted from her Californian beauty parlor, enraged mother Melba mobilizes her daughter and mother to head back to Arkansas and reclaim the family farm grounds that were violently taken from them in 1932. Hiking along are daughter Cheryl's surfer boyfriend and a trio of a flamboyant weirdos the gang picked up in Las Vegas, including macho hunk Jim Bob, gambling addicted senior citizen Bertha and greasy biker kid Snake. The deranged motley crew leaves a trail of armed robberies and kidnap conspiracies from West to East, but the biggest confrontation with the law awaits them in Arkansas. In spite of the speedy pace, "Crazy Mama" is overall rather dull and repetitive. I also would have preferred the film to be more violent and gritty, instead of comical and trashy. The performances are pretty lackluster, with Cloris Leachman not really fitting her role and Don Most being a bleak imitation of the characters Ron Howard played in the sixties and seventies. Stuart Whitman is cool, though, and Linda Purl depicts a lovable 70's exploitation wench. The only aspect that remains brilliant throughout is the soundtrack full of golden oldies, like "Lollipop" and "Running Bear". "Crazy Mama" is the third and final feature in trash-producer Roger Corman's unofficial Mama-trilogy, with "Bloody Mama" and "Big Bad Mama" as its predecessors. I'm surely going to track down those, because they look a lot cooler than this "Crazy Mama". Director Jonathan Demme has had one of the most uneven careers in Hollywood, for sure! From the sloppy Women-in-Prison flick "Caged Heat" onto exploitation flicks like "Crazy Mama" and "Fighting Mad" and towards more serious thrillers like "Last Embrace". In the 80's, Demme directed a few TV-movies, popular comedies and a lot of Neil Young videos before hitting it big with Academy Award winning blockbusters "Silence of the Lambs" and "Philadelphia".

Jonathan Demme directs this joyous unrelentlessly kitschy celebration of 50's America: opportunity, rock'n'roll, and the road. He follows three generations of women and the men they pick up, for a crime spree from California to the old family homestead in Arkansas.

hat do we have here? The film debut of both Bill Paxton and Dennis Quaid. And Dick Miller appears! Oh, and it is directed by Jonathan Demme (his second feature) and produced by Julie Corman? Excellent!

The actual film is pretty silly, with bank robbery and general hijinks that seemed par for the course in the mid-1970s, at least in the world of Roger and Julie Corman. What I enjoyed most about this film was actually the soundtrack -- a great use of classic songs in this movie, which probably took much of the budget.