Weekend Rental: Martin Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha

IONCINEMA.com’s Weekend Rental feature is our way to connect with film history’s past by pulling a title from the vault, revisiting it and relating it to an item in this week’s headlines. David Carradine‘s accidental death reminded us that his career wasn’t solely “Kung Fu” related. 1972’s Boxcar Bertha featured the actor in a rare Scorsese film that I’ve yet to see, and in a role that has often been compared to that of the gun-tooting bank robber from Arthur Penn‘s 1976 Bonnie & Clyde. Click on the box cover for more info on the DVD.  

From The NYTimes…produced by Roger Corman and directed by Martin Scorsese, Boxcar Bertha is a Bonnie and Clyde-like yarn set during the Depression. The title character, played by Barbara Hershey, links up with union organizer David Carradine (Hershey’s real-life lover at the time) after the death of her father. Running afoul of anti-union forces, Bertha and Carradine are forced into a life of crime. Whereas Bonnie and Clyde robbed banks, Boxcar Bertha’s specialty is trains. A story of this nature can only end in tragedy, and wait until you see Carradine’s symbolic demise! For the record, there really was a Boxcar Bertha Thompson, and it is her autobiography, Sister of the Road, that serves as the basis for Joyce and John Corrington’s screenplay. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide