Mama (Angie Dickinson) and daughters get forced by circumstances into bootlegging and bank robbing, and travel across the country trailed by the law.According to director Steve Carver, Angie Dickinson allowed the crew to remain on set during the filming of her sex scene with Tom Skerritt, but William Shatner asked for all nonessential crew to be removed during his sex scene with Dickinson. What a prude! Though you do see more of Shatner than you probably ever wanted to.More than anything else, this film is probably known for its gratuitous nudity. One wonders how low Angie Dickinson's career sunk that she would agree to this. Being a Corman film, she could not have been making much more than union wages.

I met director Steve Carver when he came to town to shoot "Lone Wolf McQuade," and I'm something of a fan, but even with screenwriter Bill Norton aboard, this lacks the wit and cool characters that enliven his Chuck Norris movies or even "Steel." Dialog is particularly lacking, in some scenes even leaving Tom Skerritt with nothing to do but mutter incoherently, or a game Shatner mugging as if he's about to say something but either gets cut off or thinks better of it. The two actors do their best, Skerritt all steely-eyed intensity and Shatner oozing lily-livered Southern charm, as do Royal Dano as a flustered preacher and a shockingly young-looking Noble Willingham as a lecherous bootlegging "uncle." As for the actresses, they certainly deliver the goods, and frequently, especially Angie Dickinson. Yowzah. If you're worried, Angie gets progressively more naked as the plot moves along. Look close for a young and quickly unadorned Sally Kirkland.Plotwise? Angie, rural 1932-vintage single mom, saddled with two unmanageable daughters (one way too naive and one way too not so), after extricating one daughter from a hasty wedding, dips her toe into crime (bootlegging and DAV-smoker-jacking), then gets mired in it after hooking up with bank robber Skerritt. An encounter with down-and-out Southern gent Shatner seals their fate, as he proves to be their little gang's weakest link. Along the way, much blood, clothing and inhibitions will be shed.Considering the budget and shooting time, the action is boisterous enough but haphazard and disjointed, with a lot of repetitive car chases featuring Dick Miller and a sidekick (representing the entirety of the FBI) in hot pursuit, miraculously always one step behind our anti-heroine and her mob. One shudders to see how many vintage autos run up dirt ramps and flip over. Even if you know that the Hollywood hills don't actually look a lot like East Texas (the geography of where our characters are supposed to be at any moment in the plot isn't always made abundantly clear), the small-town locations and antique cars do an impressive job of keeping the movie in its Depression-era period.Look quickly for second-unit director Paul Bartel as a party guest, following in the footsteps of Francis Coppola in "The Young Racers."

Well, it's clearly a ripoff of Bonny and Clyde, from the old 1930s square-sided cars (often rolling over) and the chattering Tommy guns spraying lead all over the place and the rollicking getaways and the brazen self-promotion during the robberies to the hokey banjo music that accompanies everything.I enjoyed the splendid performances of Angie Dickenson as a thoroughly unbelievable redneck Mamma of two pretty girls, given to industrial-strength language, and Tom Skerritt, miscast as a footloose no-goodnik, and the hammy William Shattner as a Louisville aristocrat who prefers mint juleps and a gentleman's game of poker to loud noises. Dick Miller's presence is always welcome. His chin simply juts. Angie Dickinson is marvelous. She looks just fine, especially with no clothes on. The sinewy, supple type, you know. Skerritt and Schatner both get chances to savor her indisputable charms. The young girls are splendid too. Skerritt gets a crack at both of them -- at the same time. Kids: Please leave the room for a moment. Thank you. I said THANK YOU. Now, Mom and Dad, this business of having a threesome is known in cosmopolitan circles as a menage a trois, sometimes misspelled by the less sophisticated as menage a twot. Okay? Right. Boys and girls, you can COME IN now.I kind of liked it. It's unpretentious garbage. It's made for the drive-ins and must have been lots of undemanding fun for an undemanding audience. A lot of people get shot up between the nudity and the vulgar exchanges. It follows that the bandit leaders must themselves be extinguished, and so they are, by gunshot. The men die instantly, perforated by a thousand bullets. Angie Dickenson dies gently, with a wan smile on her face, only a trickle of Technicolor number 9 red down her delicate arm betraying the presence of the fatal wound. But they're free, thrumming along a dusty road in a convertible, and Big Bad Mamma has saved her two young offspring for better things than a life of crime.Frankly, I don't see much ahead of the two little lambs, although who knows? The blond has an attractive face and saucy figure and one can imagine her as the illicit, pampered pet of some millionaire rock star from New York or Georgia -- that is until the house collapses around them. The pregnant younger daughter, a retard by any metric, who insists on toting around her teddy bear, is a different story. She's made for a career in politics.

Tough and gutsy Texas widow Wilma McClatchie (a splendidly brassy'n'sassy Angie Dickinson, looking mighty fine in her early 40's and frequently out of her wardrobe) and her two equally feisty hottie daughters -- the sexually precocious Billie Jean (adorable blonde sprite Susan Sennett of "The Candy Snatchers") and dim-witted Polly (pretty brunette cutie Robbie Lee of "Switchblade Sisters") -- embark on a wild'n'rowdy crime spree in 30's Depression-era America in order to escape hard times. Accompanying the lovely ladies are charming, but cowardly con man William J. Baxter (the ever-hammy William Shatner sporting a hilariously hokey Southern accent) and ill-tempered bank robber Fred Diller (the hunky Tom Skerrit), who happily jump in the sack with the willing wanton women in between breaking many laws. Directed with tremendously rambunctious gusto by Steve ("An Eye for An Eye") Carver, jam-packed with a pleasing plenitude of car chases, shoot outs, cuss words and tasty gratuitous nudity (even Sally Kirkland as a local harlot and Joan Prather as a snotty heiress the gang abducts doff their duds and bare their beautiful bodies), further enlivened by a ceaseless forward-ho quick pace, a rousing hillbilly bluegrass score by David Grisman, a cheerfully irreverent tone, and nifty supporting turns by Royal Dano as a profanity-spewing preacher and the always terrific Dick Miller as huffy fed Bonney (a sly homage to "Bonnie and Clyde," methinks), "Big Bad Mama" supplies a handy helping of joyous down-home trashy entertainment that's a true treat to watch.