Admirable film.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

One can tell from the start, this early, pre Dillinger gangster pic, based loosely I would assume, on a real life woman robber, and her small criminal posse, during the depression, was shot on a stringent sparing budget. This, you can tell quite greatly affects, which could of been a better movie. Signs of life in this, is Hershey, a great actress, who really oozes sexuality, and carves out her role beautifully, while Carradine, and Primus, especially, lend great, and impressive support. We even see a familiar train driver from Tough guys, as well as a few Scorsese regulars, a very young Victor Argo, in particular, who later went on to play an even number of good and bad as**s. Frank violence provides some effectively bloody moments, but this, is quite a forgettable gangster pic. It's great to see father and son Carradine's, square off in some scenes, and the movie has it's moments, but seriously Hershey is the best thing about this. She's an actress who should be wonderfully acknowledged for her great body of work. It's quite frightening to imagine what this film would of been like, hadn't she done this film. She gives a sexy and exhilarating performance, in a film, which disappoints in some stretches of film. Worth a watch though, definitely.

After working as an editor in the documentary "Woodstock", Scorsese was asked to make an exploitation film for Roger Corman, a known B-movie producer for the American International Picture.Set in the depression-era starring Barbara Hershey and David Carradine as the pair who led a small gang into a life of crime. It sometimes reminds us of the similar lovers/criminals-on-the-run classic five years ago when this film was released, Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde." Although it borrows some elements in similar films that preceded it, and was restricted by the nature of the film, still Scorsese made a way to imbued some of his style and energy and show us what he can do with the limited materials given to him.Shot in 24 days with little budget, "Boxcar Bertha" became Scorsese's training ground for making his future superior films – Scorsese once said that the tight scheduling of the film gave him the sense of discipline he needed.

It took me a very long time to finally watch BOXCAR BERTHA. The prime reason for this is simply because it's hard to find. I can't recall it ever being broadcast on television and I'm including obscure cable channels and not just network television. I can't recall it being available on DVD either or being shown in the filmhouse , Edinburgh's foremost art-house cinema. Strangely it is not held in high regard by people who have seen it and it's shocking to see it has an average rating of 6.1 on this site. If there's a film by Scorsese that can be described as "forgotten" this might just be it. How can a film by this great American auteur be forgotten ? Ah I can see why some people might hold it in relatively low regard. The 70s was a zenith for American film making and perhaps only classic Hollywood beats this era. This is an era where "movie brats" came along and made films about angry young people take on the world single handed and anyone who has ever been young and/or angry will recognise the wish fufillment that drives the central narrative of these movies. The downside is that BOXCAR BERTHA is drowned slightly by the films surrounding it. You're often reminded of similar films such as BONNIE AND CLYDE and BADLANDS. If there;s a difference it's that the characters are maybe a little bit too Robin Hood in that they'd never think of robbing the poor and that they're far more sinned against rather than sinners Some people have stated that it's more like a Corman movie than a Scorsese one. I can understand this complaint and it's obvious that the budget is limited but don't forget this is character driven which has always appealed to Marty and while there's lots of incident it doesn't really have much in the way of a core central plot, Can you see Scorsese making a film featuring a mindbending plot ala Christopher Nolan ? Me neither so this type of story is ready made for Scorsese. It's also far more enjoyable than much of Scorsese's latter output where he tries too hard such as GANGS OF NY or his spiritual movies like KUNDUN and SILENCE. In short BOXCAR BERTHA is a film for people who want to live fast and die young but never got round to it

This early Martin Scorsese film is more Roger Corman exploitation than anything we'd see later on from Scorsese. It's a well-made, expertly acted rift on BONNIE & CLYDE featuring the great Barbara Hershey in the title role. Bertha is a poor country girl who gets mixed up with union leaders and con-men, bank robbery and murder. The film is a successful mixture of comedy and extreme violence with Hershey giving an excellent performance. David Carradine, Barry Primus and Bernie Casey are in the supporting cast. Primus is a standout as a yankee grifter stuck in the deep south. The film is short (under 90 minutes) and hits the ground running, rarely letting up.