BBM is a cult favorite from the tail end of the drive-in era. Like many Roger Corman productions, it’s a grade-B homage to a better film, in this case, Bonnie and Clyde. (One of the characters was said to have been part of the Clyde Barrow gang.) There is plenty of nudity. Angie showed off her magnificent physique in several sex scenes, including two with Bill Shatner. She pushes him away the second time (sacrilege!), but manages to become familiar with the Captain’s Log in the earlier scene. Shat almost exposed said log. His pubes were in view, but the log was barely obscured by Angle’s hip. Our hero turned in his usual hammy performance. He was supposed to be speaking with a Kentucky accent, but he sounded like he was impersonating Foghorn Leghorn.
I’m disappointed to have to report that the Big Bad Mama Blu-ray really didn’t give us an upgrade from Tuna’s DVD captures. There’s a lot of surface noise and the images are not sharp.
Angie Dickinson
Susan Sennett
Robbie Lee
Some of Tuna’s old collages:
Joan Prather
Robbie Lee
Sally Kirkland
————–
Susan Sennett had a very short career. She left showbiz voluntarily at about age 23. (She was 21 or 22 in this film.) The story is that she quit because she didn’t like the whole raunchy Hollywood scene and the roles she was expected to play. IMDb says: “She wasn’t comfortable doing racy material (she reportedly walked out of the audition for the pilot for the risqué sitcom, Three’s Company). She married noted musician, Graham Nash, of Crosby Stills & Nash fame, on May 4, 1977 and has had three children with Nash, who include writer/actor/director Jackson Nash. Sennett now builds and designs houses and does work with the Children’s Storybook Theatre of Hawaii.”
If that story is accurate, her action that day was not only her sayonara to that audition, but to the biz as well. She never worked after 1975. Just prior to Big Bad Mama, she did get a wholesome leading role on a TV series called Ozzie’s Girls, which was Ozzie Nelson’s attempt to recreate the magical success of Ozzie and Harriet. Given that it was 1973, when Nelson’s 1950s style was out of touch with the zeitgeist, the show fizzled. If it had defied the odds by succeeding and lifting her to stardom, she might have gained the power to be picky about her roles, and might be acting to this day. Even in that unlikely event, it’s safe to say that she was through with nudity. To my knowledge, her only other nudity was some breast exposure in a 1973 film called The Candy Snatchers (below).