User Reviews

Perhaps not historically accurate but I enjoyed this 1960 gangster picture, made many years after the Warner Brothers cycle but having similar elements. Anchoring the film is an awesome performance from Lurene Tuttle as Ma Barker, a multi dimensional character that you almost feel sorry for but not quite. The other actors apart from the great Byron Foulger pale beside Ms. Tuttle. There are lots of good scenes; the Russian roulette during the picnic, the party with the different mobsters, the attempt to muscle in on Ma's kidnapping of a bank president; the shootout at the end. It's low budget and uses stock footage but it is lively and never boring.

Best exchange in the movie. One of Ma Barker's boys remarks of some blond tart that "she has a body by Fisher." (It was a popular commercial slogan at the time.) Ma replies sourly: "Any man who fishes knows that sooner or later he'll get stuck -- by the hook." We're not talking Billy Shakespeare here, nor Raymond Chandler, nor even Mickey Spillane.

This movie is really distinctive. It features some of the worst acting, writing, and directing ever committed to celluloid. Wow -- it leaves you breathless. What holds the thing together -- to the extent that anything does -- is the story itself. Ma Barker, who shouts every line and slaps men and boys around, while teaching them that church is a place where you steal money from the collection plate. One of her boys loves playing the violin. That makes him a sissy, so she smashes the instrument over her knee. Too bad he didn't play the calliope. The boys grow up under her tutelage and petty theft turns into deliberate murder.

For years, J. Edgar Hoover, President-for-Life of the FBI, spent his time and effort tracking down these small-time anti-nomian hoods, like Ma Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, Alvin Karpis, and John Dillinger. They were a sensational nuisance in the depression-era South and Midwest. But Hoover also was adamant about the Mafia in the cities. There was no such thing. Even into the 1960s there was popular doubt about its existence due to Hoover's influence.

Hoover never wanted to pursue organized crime. There was too much money around that might corrupt his agents, and too little celebrity for Hoover himself. The Mafia were much harder to identify and convict than dumb hoods like Baby Face Nelson. And members of Cosa Nostra had names like Frank ("The Enforcer") Nitty, Salvatore ("The String Theorist") D'Amiano, and Giordano ("The Logical Positivist") Bruno. It would have been like tackling a tar baby, whereas Ma Barker and her Merry Men were relatively easy prey. Historically, she wasn't the gang's leader but more of a maid.

Hardly anything resembling a thought went into this production. At a party (in the middle 1930s) somebody is banging out left-over boogie woogie on the piano, from the 1940s, and some of the guests do a tame jitterbug. The makeups and wardrobe are echt-1950s -- except for one spectacular three-piece suit worn by one of Ma's kids that has shoulders wider than those made for Joan Crawford by Adrian. It's a loud pin stripe and it fits him loosely, like a tent.

There's no reason to go on about this film. As one scene is ending, the director's camera follows a man's hands down to his desk top, where he briefly touches some of the clutter there, then follows his hands back up to his face -- utterly without point.

You want a good crime story of a gang? Try "The Asphalt Jungle" or "White Heat." Skip this.

The overacting of Lurene Tuttle makes this very low budget crime drama quite a campfest, but indeed a rather violent and often shocking one. Having been played fictionally by Blanche Yurka in "Queen of the Mob" and later by Shelley Winters on "Batman" and "Bloody Mama", as well as with a different name by Irene Dailey in "The Grissom Gang", and probably several other actresses on TV crimes dramas, this one can't be missed for shear audacity. They torture their victims before killing them (although one gets to play russian roulette), and in a ridiculous twist at the party with John Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly. Later, Baby Face Nelson makes an appearance. Tuttle is the one who says the bible and beef quote above, giving it indication to her husband why she wants him out so she can train her son to begin a life of crime.

"We are honorable people. You keep your word and we'll keep ours", she tells the wife of a kidnapping victim, and it's obvious that she will not be keeping her word. The film looks very cheaply made as if it was filmed for television yet deemed too violent to be shown. The incestuous relationship with the sons is deluded in this retelling although they are definitely completely controlled by her. Rule number one, she says over and over. Don't get caught, slapping the one young son who does, over and over. She finds her match in one of her son's girlfriends, Myrna Dell, whom she obviously can't stand. Don't expect the true Ma Barker story here. It's about as accurate as an episode of "The Untouchables", but looks cheaper and feels it with the sleazy nature of its structure. Perhaps better viewed as an unintentional comedy.