Backdrop fallback

White Mama

White Mama

Share

White Mama

"A proud widow. A frightened homeless kid. Nobody cared about them until they cared enough to fight for each other."

1980

1h 45m

8.0(5 votes)

Drama

TV Movie

Overview

A poor, elderly white woman living in a tenement in a black ghetto is befriended by a neighborhood boy, and the two of them form a mutually beneficial relationship: he provides her companionship and protection, and she becomes the mother he never had.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Bette Davis

Bette Davis

Estelle Malone

Ernest Harden Jr.

Ernest Harden Jr.

B.T. Williamson

Eileen Heckart

Eileen Heckart

Three Bag Lady

Virginia Capers

Virginia Capers

Gorilla Sydney

Anne Ramsey

Anne Ramsey

Heavy Charm

Lurene Tuttle

Lurene Tuttle

Mrs. McIntyre

Tony Burton

Tony Burton

Black Fighter

Peg Shirley

Peg Shirley

Judge Alice Quentin

Ernie Hudson

Ernie Hudson

Counsellor

Dan Mason

Father Gannon

Creative team

Directed by: Jackie Cooper
Written by: Robert C.S. Downs
Produced by: Jean Moore Edwards

Similar Movies

Florida

Florida

Although he's now eighty years old, Claude Lherminier is still as imposing as he ever was. But his bouts of forgetfulness and confusion are becoming increasingly frequent. Even so, he stubbornly refuses to admit that anything is wrong. Carole, his oldest daughter, wages a daily and taxing battle to ensure that he's not left on his own. Claude suddenly decides on a whim to go to Florida. What lies behind this sudden trip?

The Silver Foxes 2: Shape Up America

The Silver Foxes 2: Shape Up America

The second Silver Foxes video, featuring the hippest group of superstar parents working out to swinging music. Exercises, tips and lots of fun for seniors.

The neighborhood moth

The neighborhood moth

A tale where appearances deceive paints the portrait of a neighborhood filled with secrets.

The Collapsed

The Collapsed

In the wake of the end of the world, a family of four desperately tries to survive. Their goal: escaping the city and traveling to the rural community they once called home. The constant threat of a violent death forcing them to stay as far away from civilization as possible, they take to the forest, soon to discover the danger posed by other survivors may be the least of their worries.

Outer Dark

Outer Dark

In Appalachia during the Great Depression, a young woman bears her brother’s baby. Her brother leaves the nameless infant in the woods to die, but tells his sister that the newborn died of natural causes and had to be buried. The sister discovers this lie and sets out to find the baby for herself. But as both brother and sister separately move through the countryside, three terrifying strangers are on their tails, wreaking death and destruction wherever they appear.

Last Days in Dublin

Monster (Grattan Smith), a diminutive young Dubliner, dreams of going abroad in search of opportunity and adventure. Finding his plans consistently thwarted by a host of oddball characters, he is joined by Freddie, a homeless explorer (MC Wuzza), as he struggles to find an alternate escape.

Survivor

Survivor

A group of guys audition to be on Alabama Chi Alpha's Survivor

The Bookie & the Bruiser

The Bookie & the Bruiser

In 1959 New York, a pensive Jewish fellow named Rivner befriends an oversized Italian-American tough named Boscolo from the Lower East Side. Both men served overseas during WWII and returned changed, no longer fitting inside the lives they'd left behind. Uninterested in taking orders from bosses or playing by the rules of polite society, the two friends partner up as a bookmaker and an enforcer and create an illicit gambling operation that proves to be very profitable, though risky, and their situation gets rather sticky when they find themselves stuck between a powerful Irish gang and the Mafia.

Doe

"Doe" explores themes of addiction and survival through the lens of a man living on the streets of Hollywood who, over the course of 24 hours, drifts through a series of encounters that pull him in and out of the cycles of his compulsion.

Into the White

Into the White

During World War II, enemy fighter pilots find themselves face to face after shooting down one another's planes over a desolate landscape. In order to survive, they must set aside the rules of war.

The Invisible One

The Invisible One

Oliver Baker lives alone, and when two representatives from the Municipal Welfare Division stop by his apartment he greets them coldly. Oliver is jaded by living alone and feeling invisible, but maybe he can help Jeanne and Sheila see the invisible people by letting them know how it feels.

The Occupant

The Occupant

Desperate to save her sister, Abby takes a dangerous job in the remote Georgian wilderness. Stranded in the mountains after her helicopter crashes, she finds hope through John, a mysterious helper radioing from nearby. As he guides her through the harsh conditions, Abby struggles to survive, and her grip on reality falters until she is faced with an impossible choice.

The Survivalist

The Survivalist

In a time of starvation, a survivalist lives off a small plot of land hidden deep in forest. When two women seeking food and shelter discover his farm, he finds his existence threatened.

The Life of Mr. Human

The Life of Mr. Human

In the ruins of a world devoured by human greed, the last man plunges into a decadent frenzy: devouring rare plants, octopus flesh, the final drops of water, and eventually blood. But nature is not silent. A mysterious girl with a white rabbit appears like a myth reborn, blurring the line between legend and reality, death and renewal.

Landmine Goes Click

Landmine Goes Click

After an American tourist steps on a landmine, he is forced to watch his girlfriend get assaulted.

Life of Pi

Life of Pi

The story of an Indian boy named Pi, a zookeeper's son who finds himself in the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck sets them adrift in the Pacific Ocean.

Swiss Army Man

Swiss Army Man

Alone on a tiny deserted island, Hank has given up all hope of ever making it home again. But one day everything changes when a dead body washes ashore, and he soon realizes it may be his last opportunity to escape certain death. Armed with his new “friend” and an unusual bag of tricks, the duo go on an epic adventure to bring Hank back to the woman of his dreams.

Kill Boro

Kill Boro

A desperate son and debt-ridden father fight for their lives. Set in Azuama, a rustic town by the river, in an oil-rich state, “Kill Boro” tells the harrowing story of Elijah, a young boy burdened by his father Boro’s relentless brutality against him and his mother. Driven by desperation, Elijah seeks an unthinkable solution from a notorious gang leader.

Crushed Wings

Crushed Wings

Ria, a seven-year-old girl growing up in a village, is led by her mother to a place where a group of women from her community await her. Here she is mutilated by an unqualified cutter, who completes the cultural FGM-ritual that ensures she will one day be taken as a wife. The child, once old enough, goes on to be forcibly married and moved away from her family to the England. Eventually, Ria seeks help in escaping the life she is trapped in, but the life of her two younger sisters hang in the balance. Can she change her elders' minds and prevent them from being led down the same path? Or will they become three more of 200 million women across the globe whose wings have been crushed by FGM?

Our Old Car

Our Old Car

In this John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short, a man traces his history by the succession of cars his father owned. [This short appears in its entirety during MGM's short feature "The Great Morgan".]

Recommended Movies

The Truth About Emanuel

The Truth About Emanuel

A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.

Seeds of Yesterday

Seeds of Yesterday

The Sheffield family reveal and go through some home truths as their middle child inherits the Foxworth mansion. The family's ghosts looming over, and more tragedies are in store as the curse lives on.

Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park

Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford

I Believe

I Believe

A 9 year old boy experiences God's power in a supernatural way.

Jonathan

Jonathan

Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.

Eleanor the Great

Eleanor the Great

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

Witness to Murder

Witness to Murder

A woman fights to convince the police that she witnessed a murder while looking out her bedroom window.

Flowers in the Attic

Flowers in the Attic

After the sudden death of their father, four children face cruel treatment from their ruthless grandmother.

Where the Red Fern Grows

Where the Red Fern Grows

Set in the Ozark Mountains during the Great Depression, Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for 2 years to achieve his dream of buying two coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in God as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with "Old Dan" and "Little Ann."

The Christmas Shoes

The Christmas Shoes

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

All Together Now

All Together Now

An optimistic, talented teen clings to a huge secret: she's homeless and living on a school bus. When tragedy strikes, can she learn to accept a helping hand?

Little Lord Fauntleroy

Little Lord Fauntleroy

Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.

Hungry Hearts

Hungry Hearts

The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.

Madigan

Madigan

NYPD detectives Bonaro and Madigan lose their guns to fugitive Barney Benesch. As compensation, they are given a weekend to bring Benesch to justice. While they follow various leads, Police Commissioner Russell goes about his duties, including attending functions, meeting with aggrieved relatives, and counseling the spouses of fallen officers.

One & Two

One & Two

In an isolated farmhouse, located in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a mysterious wooden wall, Zac and Eva, two siblings gifted with extraordinary abilities, endure every day the wrath of their strict father while witnessing how a cruel sickness lurks their beloved mother.

Adopt a Highway

Adopt a Highway

Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.

Same Kind of Different as Me

Same Kind of Different as Me

International art dealer Ron Hall must befriend a dangerous homeless man in order to save his struggling marriage to his wife, a woman whose dreams will lead all three of them on the journey of their lives.

Sounder

Sounder

The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.

Poor Cow

Poor Cow

Joy lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age, she marries and has a child–with an abusive thief who quickly ends up incarcerated. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up locked up. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure–if that.

Wendy and Lucy

Wendy and Lucy

A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.