MA BARKER’S KILLER BROOD
Production: USA, 1960
Director: Bill Karn
Category: True Crime
A blazing pulp inferno of pumping machine-guns and incendiary violence, not only tracking the bloody life and crimes of Ma Barker and her sons, but throwing in fellow outlaws John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Machine-Gun Kelly to make up a fearsome juggernaut of vice. The film was refused certification by the British censor at time of release – a good indication of its subversive power. Karn also directed Five Minutes To Live (1961), which featured Johnny Cash in a rare (and maniacal) acting role as a psychopathic bank robber. Barker was also the inspiration for “Ma Webster” in Queen Of The Mob (1940), and “Ma Jarrett”, one half of the Oedipal mother-son relationship in the terminal gangster-noir movie White Heat (1949).
Posted by The Purple Gas
MA BARKER’S KILLER BROOD
