MOTHER OF A PROBLEM

Want to make a better life for your children? Try an endless string of robberies and murders.

Above is a poster for the action flick Big Bad Mama painted by John Solie, whose work we just looked at a few weeks ago for City on Fire. He was a top illustrator of his era, and it would be worth it to click his keywords below to see the eight or so other examples we’ve uploaded. As far as the movie goes, you’d think a Depression era period piece starring the incomparable Angie Dickinson would be an instant winner, but sadly it’s an absurd, episodic tale set to mouth harp and fiddle music about an amoral mother and two daughters becoming bank robbing outlaws, then kidnappers. Dickinson is radiantly sexy at forty-four, but nothing can disguise the fact that the movie is cheap, cheap, cheap. Everyone in it—even William Shatner—are decent-to-good actors under normal circumstances, but this fly-by-night production gave them no chance. Give it a watch, though, if you want to see Dickinson provide top notch fan service. Big Bad Mama premiered today in 1974.

New World Pictures, Big Bad Mama, Angie Dickinson, Tom Skerrit, William Shatner, Joan Prather, Susan Sennett, Robbie Lee, John Solie, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

April 17

1961—Bay of Pigs Invasion Is Launched

A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. However, the invasion fails badly and the result is embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy and a major boost in popularity for Fidel Castro, and also has the effect of pushing him toward the Soviet Union for protection.

April 16

1943—First LSD Trip Takes Place

Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann, while working at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, accidentally absorbs lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD, and thus discovers its psychedelic properties. He had first synthesized the substance five years earlier but hadn’t been aware of its effects. He goes on to write scores of articles and books about his creation.

April 15

1912—The Titanic Sinks

Two and a half hours after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean on its maiden voyage, the British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks, dragging 1,517 people to their deaths. The number of dead amount to more than fifty percent of the passengers, due mainly to the fact the liner was not equipped with enough lifeboats.

April 15

1947—Robinson Breaks Color Line

African-American baseball player Jackie Robinson officially breaks Major League Baseball’s color line when he debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Several dark skinned men had played professional baseball around the beginning of the twentieth century, but Robinson was the first to overcome the official segregation policy called—ironically, in retrospect—the “gentleman’s agreement.”

April 14

1935—Dust Storm Strikes U.S.

Exacerbated by a long drought combined with poor conservation techniques that caused excessive soil erosion on farmlands, a huge dust storm known as Black Sunday rages across Texas, Oklahoma, and several other states, literally turning day to night and redistributing an estimated 300,000 tons of topsoil.