Big Bad Mama (1974)

          In his autobiography Up Till Now—well, one of his many autobiographies, that is—the incomparable William Shatner derides this Roger Corman-produced action flick as Big Bad Movie, which isn’t fair. Sure, Big Bad Mama is yet another Corman rip-off of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), but it’s a hoot. Campy, funny, sexy, and violent, the picture has just about everything you might want from a silly drive-in flick. Set in the Depression era, the story follows tough Texan Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson), who’s having trouble paying the bills with her small-scale bootlegging operation. When she meets a charismatic bank robber, Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt), she embarks on a new career as a machine-gun-toting thief, abetted not only by Fred but also by her two sexy daughters and, eventually, by dandy-ish con man William J. Baxter (Shatner).

          The plot meanders because too many characters are involved, and it’s odd that Wilma’s the lead character but not actually the leader of her gang, but this sort of picture is all about creating a badass vibe and presenting exciting events. Wilma gets to spout power-to-the-people propaganda while she’s robbing wealthy people—yes, this is one of those soft-edged crime pictures in which the heroine just wants to make enough money to care for her family—and the movie offers a steady stream of sex scenes and shootouts.

          Regarding those sex scenes, one of the reasons Big Bad Mama has enjoyed a long life on home video is that Dickinson appears in the altogether during a pair of scenes, including a yowza full-frontal reveal. Since Big Bad Mama was released the same year Dickinson’s TV series Police Womandebuted, the movie captures her beauty at just the moment she enjoyed her greatest notoriety. Corman has speculated that Dickinson did the risqué scenes because she had reached her early 40s and wanted to prove she was still sexy, a classic Corman justification for exploiting an actress if ever there was one.

          As to why Shatner considers the movie a stinker, one can only speculate that he didn’t like getting upstaged by Dickinson’s body or that he didn’t like playing a ridiculous coward of a character. In any event, Corman and his cheerful accomplices, including reliable B-movie helmer Steve Carver, deliver the goods in Big Bad Mama, but not gracefully—the story sputters through awkward rhythms even as the screen fills with vivid vignettes. FYI, Dickinson reprised her Wilma McLatchie role in the poorly received sequel Big Bad Mama II (1987), also produced by Corman but helmed by sleaze-cinema hack Jim Wynorski instead of original director Carver.

Big Bad Mama: FUNKY

Steel (1979)

          While it’s mildly enjoyable as a manly-man action movie, Steel is actually more amusing when viewed for its unintentional subtext—endeavoring for macho swagger led the filmmakers weirdly close to the realm of gay erotica. The story begins when contractor “Big” Lew Cassidy (George Kennedy) heads to work on a new high-rise he’s building in Texas, explaining that the sight of a tall building “still gives me a hard-on.” When Lew dies in a workplace accident, his pretty daughter Cass (Jennifer O’Neill) pledges to finish the building, thus saving her family’s company from bankruptcy. To do so, she needs a “ramrod”—no, really, that’s the phallic job title of the movie’s real leading character, Mike Catton, played by the Six Million Dollar Man himself, Lee Majors.

          Mike is a construction foreman who quit working at high altitudes after suddenly developing a fear of heights. Now working as a trucker (picture Majors behind the wheel of a big rig in a cowboy hat and a wife-beater), Mike accepts the job on the condition that he can supervise work from a completed floor instead of climbing onto beams. As Cass’ second-in-command, “Pignose” Morgan (Art Carney), says to Mike: “You’re here because this building will give you a chance to get it up again.” Scout’s honor, that’s the line!

          The first half of the movie comprises Mike building his team of world-class steel workers, Dirty Dozen-style. These roughnecks include such walking clichés as a horny Italian named Valentino (Terry Kiser); a jive-talking African-American named Lionel (Roger E. Mosley); a stoic Indian named Cherokee (Robert Tessier); and a taunting bruiser named Dancer (Richard Lynch). Meanwhile, Lew’s estranged brother, Eddie (Harris Yulin), conspires to derail the project because he wants to seize control of Lew’s company. As the movie progresses, Mike tries to overcome his fear of heights while coaching his fellow dudes through long days of hard work and hard drinking.

          Steel is such a he-man enterprise that even though Majors engages in close physical contact and soft talk with most of his male costars, he can barely muster furtive glances for his nominal love interest, O’Neill. All of this is pleasantly diverting, in a Saturday-matinee kind of way—director Steve Carver’s cartoony style didn’t peak until his 1983 Chuck Norris/David Carradine epic Lone Wolf McQuade, but he moves things along—so it doesn’t really matter that the script is ridiculous, or that Majors is ineffectual as a leading man. Plus, to Carver’s credit, the plentiful scenes taking place on girders high above city streets are enough to give any viewer vertigo. And as for those lingering shots of sweaty men working hard, their biceps glistening in the hot Texas sun . . .

Steel: FUNKY