Martin Scorsese did not write Boxcar Bertha, his second feature after Who’s That Knocking at My Door. The film was one of those director-for-hire jobs – the film was produced by Roger Corman – and on the surface, it looks like a Bonnie and Clyde rip-off. What is surprising, then, is how Scorsese explores themes that would preoccupy him throughout his career. He has an acute sense of American history and what it does to outsiders who dare challenge the status quo.
Barbara Hershey was 24 when she starred as Bertha, but she seems eerily childlike. That is due largely to Hershey’s performance: from the first scene, she conveys earnest, wide-eyed innocence that never really goes away, even when she is complicit and robbery and murder. If anything, Bertha’s experience as an outlaw teaches her that her disarming nature can be weaponized. When the film begins, she is a happy-go-lucky daughter of a cropduster, at least until her father dies is a terrible plane accident and the Great Depression takes hold. Rudderless and eager, she hops on a train with Big Bill Shelly (David Carradine), who eventually becomes her lover and accomplice. A series of robberies turn them into notorious outlaws, although Bertha is more passive than Bill and the other members of their gang.
In terms of sex and violence, Boxcar Bertha can be admittedly exploitative. It does not take long for Hershey to undress, and the camera regards her body with a mix of shyness and lurid curiosity. The film ends with a brutal shootout, to the point where Bertha’s accomplice Von (Bernie Casey) practically has to climb over bodies in order to reach her. While many Scorsese films are violent, this is the rare example where it is used for thrills and not much else. Roger Corman may have started the careers of many important actors and filmmakers, but he still recognized that that B-movie audiences had certain expectations in what they see and Scorsese was happy to oblige.
Between all that, however, is a thoughtful film about organized labor and race relations. Bill may be a violent criminal, but he starts the film as a union leader, the kind who inspires and worries the establishment (his passion is partly why Bertha becomes his lover). Unlike Bonnie and Clyde, who Arthur Penn depicts as charismatic sociopaths, Bill and Bertha have more of a conscience. In many scenes, that conscience gets them into trouble more than their actual crimes do. There is a brutal scene where Bill is in jail, and is beaten mercilessly because he has the gall to see how a black prisoner is doing (one of the lawmen calls Bill a “n-word lover”). Indeed, Bill’s values are what seal his unusual fate. Rather than being gunned down or hung at the gallows, Bill is crucified on the side of railway car. His death is meant to set an example, and creates an eerie parallel since Hershey would later play Mary Magdalene in The Last Temptation of Christ. For a film that trivializes, the Christ-like pose Bill strikes can be shocking.
Bill is not always in the picture, however, which means there are plenty of scenes where Bertha must fare on her own. In the throes of the Depression, Bertha has no choice but to work as a prostitute. These scenes are striking because Bertha’s nature – big-hearted, innocent, demure – show no signs of abating, and instead help her get through a period that could have broken her (Scorsese also appears as one of her clients, one of many times he would cast himself in a minor role). The editing here is clever without making too big a deal about it: we get the sense that Bertha has not worked at the brothel too long, then when she reunites with her friend, the dialogue tells us that months have passed. Scorsese suggests that, without a train to hop on or a partner in tow, time for Bertha is cyclical without meaning. It is only through force of will that said time also manages to be somewhat tolerable.
Even with early versions of Scorsese’s favorite ideas, Boxcar Bertha is a minor film in his oeuvre. He would make Mean Streets a year later, which would catapult him into the canon, and so Bertha is more of a curiosity, a kind early of blueprint that might help unlock Scorsese’s hang-ups and obsessions. The film does not quite stand on its own – it’s too repetitive and unfocused for that – but completists may find meaning in a young woman who persevered through a period defined by cruelty.
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