Boxcar Bertha (1972)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

best movie i've ever seen.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This early Martin Scorsese film is more Roger Corman exploitation than anything we'd see later on from Scorsese. It's a well-made, expertly acted rift on BONNIE & CLYDE featuring the great Barbara Hershey in the title role. Bertha is a poor country girl who gets mixed up with union leaders and con-men, bank robbery and murder. The film is a successful mixture of comedy and extreme violence with Hershey giving an excellent performance. David Carradine, Barry Primus and Bernie Casey are in the supporting cast. Primus is a standout as a yankee grifter stuck in the deep south. The film is short (under 90 minutes) and hits the ground running, rarely letting up.

During the Depression, a young woman joins a group of socialist train robbers. Based on the evidence presented here, one would not have guessed that Scorsese would go on to become one of the most notable directors of his generation. The direction here is amateurish, not helped by the poor script that has little narrative flow. The one aspect of the director's style that is on display here is his preoccupation with repulsive violence. This is particularly evident in the ridiculous finale. Hershey has a charismatic presence, but her character has no depth. Since the characters are little more than caricatures, it is hard to care about what happens to them.

This never was interesting. It was boring in the sixties, and boring today.It's another of the multitude of stories of self righteous crooks, the chief ones being an attractive couple and a token Negro. The token Negro was the mainstay of the sixties and seventies, serving only purpose, to be someone who said "yassah" to the self righteous white thugs.There's nothing exciting about this movie. There's also nothing that makes sense in this movie. Whatever the motivations are, whatever people are doing, no one knows and no one cares. It's all just a jumbled mess. A bunch of action scenes, lots of shotgun blasts, trains, skin, just for the sake of showing shotguns, trains, cars, and skin. None of it is plot related, but that's because there is no plot.There's nothing horrible about the movie, just nothing good. Just a waste of time.

Boxcar Bertha (1972)** (out of 4) Roger Corman produced this quickie "B" movie and handed the directorial duties to a young Martin Scorsese, which was a strange mix of talent. The film, set during the Depression, tells the story of "Boxcar" Bertha Thompson (Barbara Hershey) and her boyfriend "Big" Bill Shelly (David Carradine), two small criminals who decide to go big in order to get revenge on a railroad company owned by an evil tycoon (John Carradine). This film is clearly a low-rent version of Bonnie and Clyde with the sex and nudity factor pumped up to support the needs of producer Corman and while it's not a total success there's still enough interesting stuff here to make it worth viewing. While I wouldn't call the film entertaining it's at least interesting to watch just to see the style of film-making Corman wanted being used by a more stylish young filmmaker. There's no doubt that Scorsese fingerprints are all over this baby and his strong direction really makes the film a lot more entertaining than it has the right to be. The violence in a Scorsese movie would later come front and center but it's also on display here and this is one thing that really stands out. The stylish touches added to these scenes, especially one scene where a member gets killed on a train, really makes them stand out compared to other violent "B" pictures of its time. There are countless slow motion shots of blood gushing out and there are even more stylish edits to show off the violence and Scorsese uses all of them to his benefit in order to come up with one of the most stylish "B" movies out there. The one thing I think was lacking from the director is a sense of keeping the film moving because I felt there were too many instances where the film dragged. Another good thing about the movie are the performances with Hershey really standing out in the title role. The innocent nature she brings the film was great fun to watch and really adds a lot to her character. Carradine isn't as good but he's still quite watchable in his role. The scene chewing John Carradine certainly leaves an impression in his fun, if over the top, performance. While there's a lot to enjoy here there's still no question that we've seen this type of film down countless times before and after. The acting and direction make it stand out but they're still working with a secondary screenplay, which keeps this from being a major winner.