Boxcar Bertha
Boxcar Bertha is a 1972 American romantic crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and produced by Roger Corman, from a screenplay by Joyce H. Corrington and John William Corrington. Made on a low budget, the film is loose adaptation of "Sister of the Road", a pseudo-autobiographical account of the fictional character Bertha Thompson. It was Scorsese's second feature film. Plot. In the 1930s American south, Bertha Thompson decides to live the life of a transient after her crop duster father dies in a plane crash leaving her alone in the world. She grows up quickly  from the experiences she has with various people she meets while riding the rails. Ultimately, she ends up traveling with three others: "Big" Bill Shelly, a laborer who now speaks on behalf of workers' rights and unions; Rake Brown, a gambler not averse to cheating and who carries a gun but is too scared to ever use it; and Von Morton, a harmonica playing black man who worked as her father's mechanic. Despite their different motivations in life, the four become fiercely loyal to each other, especially Bertha and Bill, who each consider the other to be the love  of their life. Besides Rake's need to cheat to make a living, none of the four is predisposed to criminal behavior, but they end up living a life of crime out of circumstance, which included a card game gone wrong. Bill in particular feels uncomfortable with the criminal behavior in and of itself, except for the good he can do for the working class in the crimes. Even before their overtly criminal activities, they riled the police, who harassed them for riding the rails and for Bill's "Bolshevik" talk. But they also rile a railway owner named Sartoris  and the sadistic McIver brothers, who work as henchmen for both the authorities and Sartoris, as Bill's pro-union/pro-striking diatribes are generally against the railroad. Hence, the battle between Sartoris/the McIvers and the foursome becomes a personal one on both sides. Production. After the success of "Bloody Mama", Roger Corman wanted to make another female gangster film. Julie Corman researched female gangsters and came across the story of Boxcar Bertha. Martin Scorsese was hired to direct on the strength of his first feature. He was given the lead actors, including Barbara Hershey, David Carradine, and Barry  Primus, and a shooting schedule of 24 days in Arkansas. The Reader Railroad was used for the train scenes. The locomotive in those scenes was 1920 Baldwin 2-6-2 #108, which later saw service on the Conway Scenic Railroad in the late 1970s. The engine is currently at the Blacklands Railroad yard in Sulphur Springs, Texas, awaiting restoration. Locomotive #1702, a USATC S160 2-8-0 built by Baldwin in 1942, was also seen in the film as well. The locomotive is now operational at the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. Scorsese makes a cameo in the film as one  of Bertha's clients during the brothel montage. Hershey later called the film "a lot of fun even though it's terribly crippled by Roger Corman and the violence and sex. But between the actors and Marty Scorsese the director, we had a lot of fun. We really had characters down but one tends to not see all that, because you end up seeing all the blood and sex." Barbara Hershey publicly announced that they filmed the movie's sex scenes "without having to fake anything." Reception. "Boxcar Bertha" received mixed reviews from critics. It holds an approval rating of  52% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 5/10. The website's critical consensus says, "Too derivative of other Roger Corman crime pictures to stand out, "Boxcar Bertha" feels more like a training exercise for a fledgling Martin Scorsese than a fully formed picture in its own right." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three stars out of four and called it "a weirdly interesting movie ... Director Martin Scorsese has gone for mood and atmosphere more than for action, and his violence is always blunt and unpleasant — never  liberating and exhilarating, as the New Violence is supposed to be. We get the feeling we're inhabiting the dark night of a soul." "The New York Times" Howard Thompson found the film to be an "interesting surprise," praising Carradine's "excellent" performance and the "beautiful" direction by Scorsese, "who really comes into his own here." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "What is most impressive about "Boxcar Bertha" ... is how 28-year old director Martin Scorsese, in his first Hollywood venture, has managed to shape such familiar material into a viable film." Arthur D. Murphy of "Variety  gave the film a negative review, writing, Whatever its intentions, "Boxcar Bertha" is not much more than an excuse to slaughter a lot of people ... The final cut has stripped away whatever mood and motivation may have been in the script, leaving little more than fights, shotgun blasts, beatings and aimless movement." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film one star out of four and called it a "trashy movie" with violence that "does not shock. It merely depresses." Tom Milne of "The Monthly Film Bulletin" declared: "Abrasively scripted, stunningly shot, and beautifully acted by David Carradine, Barbara  Hershey and Barry Primus in particular, "Boxcar Bertha" is much more than the exploitation picture it has been written off as (by "Variety," for instance) and makes a worthy companion piece to both "Bloody Mama" and "Bonnie and Clyde.""