Boxcar Bertha

Year of release : 1972

Run time : 1h29m

Genre : Drama

Cast : David Carradine, Barbara Hershey

Director : Martin Scorsese

The movie was based on the 1937 Ben L. Reitman story “Sister of the road” (which apparently was based on actual events), and was Martin Scorsese’s second movie.

Boxcar Bertha’s father dies as the crop-dusting plane he flies crashes, and she becomes an orphan. She ends up boarding and riding freightcars without permission, going from place to place.

At first she does this with Big Bill, and they end up doing the nasty, after which he disappears on her, and she has to make money playing dice and cards.

She lives with Rake Brown for a while, and ends up freighthopping after a fight at a game of poker.

On the freightcar she meets Big Bill again, and he grabs her like he never ghosted her, and they’re back together again.

Big Bill throws her out when the police catches them, so they won’t take her to jail.

Big Bill is beaten by the cops in jail (because he might be a communist), and the fight is put to an end by men with rifles. He ends up working the roads in prison.

Boxcar Bertha drives a car to where they work, pretends to have car problems, and threatens the cop with a gun, while Big Bill and his men come and hit him in the head.

They soon start to live a life of crime, as they start robbing people, and their antics are depicted in the newspapers.

The movie personally bored me.

I didn’t like how the movie was cut and put together. I didn’t like how it was filmed. It has these uneasy, fast, close-ups. In certain scenes it looks like the movie’s on fast forward. It starts with the credits, writing the two leading actors’ names and then it does it again, in black and white.

The kissing and s3x scenes are bad, and look weird and fake, the actors look uncomfortable, although, ironically, Barbara Hershey was allegedly quoted as saying the s3x scenes were filmed “without having to fake anything”

The leading characters were unlikeable. I actually liked it when they were caught and b3aten up.

I didn’t like the acting.

I didn’t like the soundtrack.

The movie, which can be found on the Ok.Ru platform for free, was filmed in 24 days.

The movie reviews are under 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, and under 68% on Metacritic. IMDB gave it a 6 out of 10.

Viewer discretion is advised, as the movie contains nudity.

Rating : The horror, the horror !