I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

"Boxcar Bertha" is an enjoyable, if unmemorable, exploitation film that was one of a number of obvious "Bonnie & Clyde" cash-ins. It's mostly noteworthy for the fact that producer Roger Corman hired a young up and comer to direct it: Martin Scorsese. While admirers of the filmmaker may rightly feel that he's done MUCH better work, this is still a good film of its kind: decently paced, engagingly performed, quite violent at times, and occasionally sporting that Scorsese style.A radiant and gorgeous Barbara Hershey plays a real-life Depression era character named Bertha Thompson. Bertha falls in with an odd group of companions that become her partners in crime: Big Bill Shelly (David Carradine), a union organizer with no burning desire to live the criminal life, Rake Brown (Barry Primus), a cowardly con artist, and Von Morton (Bernie Casey), an old Thompson family friend.Hershey and Carradine, her real-life romantic partner at the time, get some very effective chemistry going, with the latter delivering a likable if somewhat low key performance. It's also irresistible to see Carradine acting with his legendary father, John Carradine (who plays railroad kingpin H. Buckram Sartoris), in a key robbery sequence. Buffs will also recognize beefy veteran character actor Victor Argo as one of the heavies and the equally solid Harry Northup as a hostile, racist cop. Although they don't show up in the movie, two minor characters get named Emeric Pressburger and M. (Michael) Powell!Scorsese was given free reign to do pretty much what he wanted, provided that he stay within the exploitation genre, and under the budget of approximately $600,000. He does a very capable job of telling this story, keeping it watchable all the way through.For those who care, *both* Hershey and Carradine get naked.Six out of 10.

A typically cheap ($600,000 budget) and amateurish Roger Corman exploitation film, 'Boxcar Bertha' is largely significant as Martin Scorsese's first studio feature. The literary inspiration for the film is 'Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha' "as told to Ben L. Reitman" (Macauley, 1937). Masquerading as an autobiography, 'Sister of the Road' is actually a novel. Boxcar Bertha never existed; she is an amalgam of several women—mostly Retta Toble (who married Joe Curran, legendary president of the National Maritime Union, in 1939). Reitman modeled Bertha and her cronies on people he had come to know in his tumultuous life as an anarchist, hobo, whorehouse doctor, birth control advocate, and one of Emma Goldman's lovers. The various incidents described in the book happened to Reitman himself or countless other hobos he met and conversed with over the years. To adapt Reitman's book to the screen, Corman tapped the services of John William and Joyce Hooper Corrington, a married screen writing duo who had penned Corman's previous film, 'The Red Baron' (1971). Their mandate was to fashion a thinly disguised remake of 'Bonnie & Clyde' in order to cash in on the rebellious-but-doomed-young-crooks-in-love motif that Arthur Penn's film had so successfully exploited a few years before. This involved discarding the actual contents of Reitman's book but retaining title, setting, and some characters for a vestige of Depression-era authenticity. Reitman's Boxcar Bertha had been involved in a shoplifting ring but Corman's Bertha (Barbara Hershey), her lover, 'Big' Bill Shelly (David Carradine), and two accomplices—Rake Brown (Barry Primus) and Von Morton (Bernie Casey)—become full-fledged outlaws bent on bringing down rapacious railroad baron H. Buckram Sartoris (John Carradine). In a bloody, apocalyptic ending, the gang's bid to kidnap Sartoris is foiled, Brown shot dead, and Shelly captured and nailed to the side of a boxcar in a way that obviously invokes Christ's crucifixion. Clumsy and cartoon-like in some spots, 'Boxcar Bertha' also exhibits flashes of cinematic brilliance: indications that 29-year-old Martin Scorsese had lots of potential. To this day Hershey and Carradine maintain that their sex scenes were quite real. DVD (2002).

"Boxcar Bertha" is an unusual film. In one of his first films, Martin Scorsese directs a film for Roger Corman. Now this is a problem, as Corman is the king of cheap but successful exploitation films--and Scorsese obviously was trying to make a film better than this genre. The results, though better than you expect, are still not great. This film is much like taking Corman's "Big Bad Momma" and combining it with a less cheap and less exploitational crime film. As a result, it's not quite as silly as this previous film--but the use of lots of nudity and violence betray its exploitation roots.There really isn't a lot of plot in "Boxcar Bertha". It consists of Bertha (Barbara Hershey) taking off her clothes a lot as well as her and the gang (consisting of David Carradine, Bernie Casey and Barry Primus) robbing banks, trains and the like as well as OFTEN escaping from the police or prison. The only thing that really is unique is the strong populist message, as Carradine's character is often talking about unions and socialism. I found all this mildly interesting but that's really all. In fact, the most interesting aspect of the film is that David Carradine appears in some scenes with his father, John. All in all, a film that is not particularly great or bad--somewhere in the middle. Had the film either tried harder to be sleazy and silly OR been more serious and had greater depth, it would be a film I would heartily recommend. As it is, it's just a time-passer.

Martin Scorsese's second picture and the second in my Scorsese in Sequence feature is Boxcar Bertha. Bertha Thompson (Barbara Hershey) is a young woman whose father dies in an aircraft accident. With no money and no home she travels around the Depression hit South aboard railway boxcars. Along the way she meets 'Big' Bill Shelly (David Carradine), a Union Man and suspected Communist. The two of them begin a relationship and along with Yankee, Rake Brown (Barry Primus) and 'negro', Von Morton (Bernie Casey) take to robbing trains as a means of surviving.This is unlike most other Scorsese films. It is the only one to feature a woman in the central role and one of only a handful set outside of the East Coast. As a result it feels amongst the least Scorsese-esque of his films. The direction is fairly straightforward. There are no trademark long tracking shots, very little popular music and cutting is slow and traditional. One area in which Scorsese does stick to type is with Bertha's moral ambiguity. At the beginning she is a sweet young girl but towards the end she is a woman who will do anything it takes to survive and appears to enjoy the wilder side of life. The film also contains Scorsese's trademark violence, especially in an unexpectedly brutal final scene.The story isn't very interesting, or at least it didn't interest me. Although Bertha was the central character, I never felt that we really got to know her. Barbara Hershey's performance though was excellent. She had this mischievous glint in her eye and a cheeky smile. She is the sort of character that you could imagine getting away with anything. David Carradine (Hershey's real life partner at the time) is also good and the relationship between the two feels realistic, helped I'm sure by their off screen romance. One of my main problems with the film was that it felt like I was watching people from the 1970s doing impressions of people from the 30s. The period detail was there but it wasn't well used. Hershey for instance looked like she'd just arrived from Woodstock. Another problem was that towards the end of the film only Carradine's character appeared to have aged and this made me confused as to how much time had lapsed.Where the film is strong is in its depiction of harsh conditions during the depression. It shows this not only in the traditional sense of men out of work but also from the perspective of woman and African Americans. It is shocking to hear the black character repeatedly mentioned as an afterthought by the authorities, as though he was of no importance while the things that Bertha must do to live once her robbing days are over are typical of the era. There are small details such a dirt under the character's nails which helps to create the down and out look.Produced by Roger Corman, the film was obviously intended for the exploitation market. While it does not fit into the B-Movie genre quite as easily as the likes of The Wasp Woman and Attack of the Crab Monsters, it was produced for just $600,000, features plenty of unnecessary nudity and feels cheap and rushed. This is a film in which Scorsese is still very much finding his feet. If I'm honest it feels like a step back from Who's That Knocking at My Door and Scorsese went back to that formula for his next film Mean Streets, but this film showed that Scorsese was capable of making a film out of his comfort zone, quickly and on a small budget. That being said, I'd only recommend it to Scorsese and Corman completists.www.attheback.blogspot.com