Boxcar Bertha (1972)

Boxcar Bertha (USA,1972) 88 min color DIR: Martin Scorsese. PROD: Roger Corman. SCR: Joyce Hooper Corrington, John William Corrington, based on the book by Ben L. Reitman. MUSIC: Gib Guilbeau, Thad Maxwell. DOP: John M. Stephens. CAST: Barbara Hershey, David Carradine, Barry Primus, Bernie Casey, John Carradine, Victor Argo, Harry Northup. (American International Pictures)

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Whenever anyone compiles a list of Corman alumnae who have gone on to do great things, the list usually starts with Martin Scorsese. Scorsese was a graduate of New York University, where he studied film and made his first picture, Who’s That Knocking at My Door? Corman was impressed by that film, and recruited Scorsese to direct Boxcar Bertha, a southern Bonnie and Clyde rip-off made for AIP because of contractual obligations. Scorsese took on the job eagerly, and before shooting in Arkansas, he had drawn, by his estimate, about five hundred storyboards. Impressed by Scorsese’s professionalism, Corman had little advice to deliver except to provide some nudity every fifteen minutes to keep the audience interested.

And nudity Boxcar Bertha does deliver, as well as a reasonable amount of bloody violence. The simple story involves a gang of bank robbers, led by Boxcar Bertha (Barbara Hershey) and Big Bill Shelley (David Carradine), who drift in and out of prison and rob the wealthy, particularly the evil H. Buckram Sartoris (the inimitable John Carradine). Besides the final scene’s Christian symbolism, Scorsese buffs shouldn’t try to look for many auteur touches – the sweaty Arkansas locations are in contrast to the edgy, explosive urban landscapes created in Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, and Bertha isn’t exactly Travis Bickle. Furthermore, Scorsese is never able to make the viewer forget that this is an exploitation film. That being said, Scorsese’s direction is solid; he creates some memorable images and keeps the film moving at a fast pace. More important than the finished product was how Corman’s bare-bones production schedule influenced Scorsese’s later, more ambitious works.

“When I did The Last Temptation of Christ,” said Scorsese in Corman’s autobiography, “I shot a biblical epic in sixty days, cutting all day and night and utilizing time the way I learned from Roger.”

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Originally published in The Roger Corman Scrapbook. (Editor’s trivia note: Barbara Hershey, who would later play Mary Magdalene in The Last Temptation of Christ, had given Scorsese a copy of the book during the making of Boxcar Bertha.)