Crazy Mama (1975)

I shouldn't have to list the names of the individuals Roger Corman helped into the movie business, so I won't. One of the best and most celebrated directors to come out of New World Pictures was Jonathan Demme. Demme had worked on some screenplays for Roger, and his first film as a director was a standard-but-entertaining women in prison picture called Caged Heat. After that he made the movie that really began to show his particular talents as a filmmaker: Crazy Mama.

Crazy Mama is closer in spirit to Melvin and Howard than The Silence of the Lambs. It's a quirkier and smaller than his later big budget productions.

With New World Pictures, Corman wanted to make artistic films, but he always had his eye on getting a return on his investment. He took more chances when AIP was bankrolling him. Roger knew the elements of movie-making that equated profit. Nudity, car crashes, violence, humor. He also followed the trends of successful pictures. The concept behind Crazy Mama combined the antihero gangster antics of Bonnie and Clyde, the car chase comedy of Smokey and the Bandit, along with the 1950s revival that was so popular in the seventies.

Cloris Leachman plays the titular Mama, Melba Stokes. When she is evicted from her beauty salon for nonpayment of rent, she, her own mother, and her daughter decide to take a cross country trip to reclaim the land that was foreclosed from her family years back. They are joined by a surfer dude, a greaser guy, a salty-sweet old lady, and a new beau for Mama Stokes.

Typical seventies low budget shenanigans ensue. You get your comic car action. Gearheads loved clouds of dust, squealing tires, high speed chases, and of course the ever-popular loose hubcaps rolling away as a car makes a wild turn. Cops tended to be buffoons, and they usually got the bad end of a pursuit. A rolling police car was standard, and it helped if dazed patrolmen looked out of an upturned car as our heroes sped to safety.

Crazy Mama is handled with more aplomb than most of this kind of material, but it's all still fairly routine. A funny thing happens along the ride. You begin to care for this odd family. The movie sneaks up on you. Their plight, once trivial, becomes more poignant. Just when you think Crazy Mama is a lightweight comedy, Demme ups the stakes when a heist goes bad. Two members of Mama's family are killed.

There's a great scene when the eccentric family is mourning and they try to shout their lost friends into Heaven. It actually brought a tear to my eye.

There's the requisite action-heavy finale, and as legend goes, the entire family was supposed to be gunned down. Demme fought Roger about it, and deciding that a changed ending would not affect his bottom line, he relented and allowed a softer finish to Crazy Mama. I like a nihilistic conclusion to a movie, but I believe Demme made the right choice. A funny-sad postscript is added instead.

Cloris Leachman is excellent as Melba Stokes. Hollywood veteran Ann Southern plays Grandma Stokes with boisterous relish. Angelic Linda Purl is great as the young daughter. Happy Days' Donny Most is just fine as the goofy surfer, and tough guy character actor Stuart Whitman is Mama's love interest.

New World may have made cheap pictures, but it was honest work and Roger Corman always paid. They often got big names in small roles. In addition to the fine talent listed above, Crazy Mama also has Jim Backus, Dick Miller, Sally Kirkland, and Will Sampson. You'll miss them if you blink, but Dennis Quaid and Bill Paxton both have their screen debuts in the film.

I also want to point out the music in Crazy Mama. Jonathan Demme has always had a deft ear for soundtracks. Look how the innovative use of songs benefited movies like Something Wild and Rachel Getting Married. He utilizes fifties tunes to bring about a wistful mood in Crazy Mama. He and Corman got in right under the wire, when you could still get rights for, well, a song. Shortly after that songwriters realized they could get decent money from producers.

Nearly every New World Picture is worth watching. Some, however, are pretty bad. Making a low budget picture with extensive stunts and exterior shots is challenging. Things do not always work out. Many are perfectly enjoyable little slices of entertainment. A handful are genuinely good motion pictures. Crazy Mama is one of the best of the entire run. It's funny, it's moving, and it features yet another Corman staple: Women with guns. What's not to like?

Written by Mark Sieber