- Boxcar Bertha
Infobox Film | name =Boxcar Bertha
caption =Theatrical release poster.
director =Martin Scorsese
producer =Roger Corman
writer =Ben L. Reitman (book "Sisters of the Road")
starring =Barbara Hershey David Carradine Barry Primus
cinematography =
music =
editing =
distributor =American International Pictures
released =June 14 , 1972 US release
runtime = 92 min
language = English
budget = $600,000
imdb_id = 0068309"Boxcar Bertha" (1972), one of acclaimed director
Martin Scorsese 's earliest films, is an extremely loose adaptation of "Sister of the Road", the fictionalizedautobiography of radical and transient Bertha Thompson as written by physician Dr. Ben L. Reitman. One of producerRoger Corman 's famousexploitation film s, the movie was made with a minuscule $600,000 budget and taught Scorsese how to make films quickly and economically.Besides the name of the heroine and her freight riding, very little of the film bears any resemblance to the original story written in "Sister of the Road". The film tells the story of Bertha Thompson (played by
Barbara Hershey ) and "Big" Bill Shelley (played byDavid Carradine ), two train robbers and lovers who are caught up in the plight of railroad workers in the American South. When Bertha is implicated in the murder of a wealthy gambler, the pair become fugitives from justice. While this story adheres to certain conventions of exploitation narrative, it also offers a surprisingly frank look at race and gender issues in the 1930s.The character Bertha Thompson, long popularly thought to have been a real person, was actually Reitman's creation. In fashioning the character of Bertha, Reitman combined his own life story with those of various female acquaintances.
Actors
Barbara Hershey andDavid Carradine have both stated that their sex scenes in the film were unsimulated. [ [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19720719/REVIEWS/207190301/1023 Ebert, Roger; "Boxcar Bertha"] ; July 19, 1972 Review at Roger Ebert's website]References
External links
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