Movie review - "Crazy Mama" (1975) **1/2

Jonathan Demme's second film for director is like his first, Caged Heat, clearly the work of a man of great talent but suffers from a patchy story. This one is a sort of follow up to Big Bad Mama - it starts off in the Depression when a dirt poor farmer is shot by the bank, leaving a widow and child. One would expect the film to follow straight on with the widow and daughter wrecking havoc, and indeed this does happen - only in 1958, when the daughter has become Cloris Leachman and has a daughter of her own (Linda Purl). For that is where we cut to, with the family (mom is played by Anne Southern) running a beauty salon in Long Beach.

They go bust, and decide to get the farm back - this over 20 years on. So they go to Vegas along with the daughter's boyfriend (Don Most from Happy Days), pick up a smooth talker (Stuart Whitman) for Leachman, a really old lady as a mate for Southern, and a greaser as another boyfriend for Purl. They rob a few places.

In Depression era films it was easy to get sympathy for robbers, but setting something in 1958 has problems as America was quite prosperous then and the family are only in financial trouble because of their own incompetence. They don't even check to see if the farm is for sale and just go around robbing people - it reduces the sympathy. Frequent references back to the Depression era shooting only make you wish it had been set during the Depression - at least there could have been villains (the cops here are only doing their job).

In the film's favour is the production design, lavish, kitsch and colourful (sets and costumes) and most of all the easy oddball sense of camraderie among the lead characters, one of Demme's early eccentric families - he and the actors create a real feeling that they belong together, which is tremendously endearing, and make one wish the story problems had been solved.

Not very exploitative at all - very little nudity (a glimpse of Purl's arse), some decent action, little blood, and some very exploitatable elements (like Purl having two boyfriends) are not exploited at all. In Demme's defence, he was brought on to the film with only a few week's notice after original director Shirley Clarke pulled out.

Julie Corman, Roger's wife, produced it and John Milius has a cameo as a gun-toting sheriff.