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Plot

Cloris Leachman stars as Melba, a woman with whom violence is a way of life, in Jonathan Demme's high-pitched "B"-movie Crazy Mama. The film spans three decades in the violent life of Melba, beginning in Jerusalem, Arkansas in 1932, when law enforcers kill her father (Clint Kimbrough), turning her mother Sheba (Ann Sothern) into a bitter widow. Mother and daughter take off to Long Beach, California, and the time jumps to 1958, when the two are thrown out of their beauty salon for non-payment of back rent. Melba now has an attractive (and pregnant) teenage daughter Cheryl (Linda Purl). The three generations take to the road, stealing cars and creating general mayhem across the United States, robbing a motorcycle racetrack box office and a bank. But in 1959, Melba and Cheryl are picked up again, running a Miami Beach snack bar, their lives wasted in free-living terror.
MPAA Rating:
Genre(s):
Comedy,Crime and Mystery,Thriller
Run Time:
82min.
DVD Release Date:
05/28/2002
Director(s):
Jonathan Demme
Starring:
Cloris Leachman , Stuart Whitman , Ann Sothern , Tisha Sterling , Jim Backus
Themes:
Mothers and Daughters,Crime Sprees
Tone:
Atmospheric,Intimate,Sweeping,Tense
Keywords:
crime-spree,generation,homestead,journey,on-the-road,shoot-out
Language:
English