For the first few years of Roger Corman's New World Pictures, this ranked with The Big Doll House as the studio's most popular film. It certainly has energy and verve, as well as some good performances from semi-names. Angie Dickinson plays a white trash widow in 1930s Texas who takes her daughters around the country, getting them involved increasingly in crime, eventually winding up robbing banks and kidnapping. Tom Skerrit plays a bank robber they hook up with; he starts an affair with Dickinson, but she eventually dumps him for smooth talking gigolo William Shatner, so he takes up with the eldest daughter - then the youngest daughter - at the same time (the scene where one daughter brings the other one into bed with Skerritt is exploitation filmmaking at its finest).
It moves along at a fair clip; Dickinson is good value as the rather ruthless woman with ambition for her girls. There is requisite New World nudity; everyone gets in no the act including Dickinson and (unfortunately) Shatner. Dickinson's two girls are played by Susan Sennett and Robbie Lee, who give crackerjack, livewire performances, perfectly appropriate for this sort of film, yet both actors faded from view after this.
There is also some vaguely left wing social commentary, with rich characters rabbiting on about unions and socialism. Probably the best of the Bonnie and Clyde rip off genre, which also includes Little Laura and Big John, Dillinger, Bullet for a Pretty Boy, Crazy Mama and Corman's own Bloody Mama.
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