Boxcar Bertha 1972 R18+

Production still from Boxcar Bertha 1972/ Director: Martin Scorsese / Image courtesy: Park Circus / View full image
When
Where
Gallery of Modern Art, Cinema B
Accessibility
- Wheelchair Accessible
About
In 2024, Martin Scorsese declared "Roger Corman gave me my start in movies ... If I hadn't worked with Roger, I wouldn't have known how to make Mean Streets or, when it comes right down to it, any of the pictures that followed."
With this Corman-produced slice of Bonnie and Clyde-sploitation, the young Scorsese directed his second feature, learning how to work within the framework of low budget and genre cinema expectations. The film is a loose adaptation of the book 'Sister of the Road' and follows the young 'Boxcar' Bertha Thompson (Barbara Hershey) as she traverses the Depression-era South. After she falls in love with union organiser Big Bill Shelly (David Carradine), the two find themselves part of a small posse robbing trains and banks, angering a powerful railway magnet. Brimming with Corman-prescribed sex and violence, the film also showcases early inklings of the themes and images that would come to define Scorsese's cinema over the ensuing decades.
R18+ | High level violence
Production Credits
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Script: Joyce H Corrington, John William Corrington
- Based on: the story ‘Sister of the Road’ by Ben L Reitman
- Cinematographer: John Stephens
- Editor: Buzz Feitshans
- Producer: Roger Corman
- Cast: Barbara Hershey, David Carradine, Barry Primus
- Print Source: Park Circus
- Rights: Park Circus
- Year: 1972
- Runtime: 87 minutes
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Colour: Colour
- Shooting Format: 35mm
- Screening Format: DCP