Leave it to Martin Scorsese, in his second feature as director, to pull out a split diopter shot in the first minute of what is essentially a Bonnie and Clyde knockoff for producer Roger Corman. The face of David Carradine, playing railroad worker and labor activist Big Bill Shelly, dominates the right foreground of the frame, while equally focused in the left background is Barbara Hershey’s Bertha, the young woman he’s been admiring while laying tracks. Boxcar Bertha—a Depression-era, pro-labor, crime drama, in which Bertha and Bill eventually lead a team of railroad robbers—features a handful of such stylistic flourishes: sliding into black and white for the opening credits; the camera spinning from Bertha’s face to her point of view when she unwittingly walks into a brothel; a stunning final shot, with the camera fixed to the side of a train, that evokes Mary Magdalene (whom Hershey would play in Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ) at the foot of Jesus’ crucifixion. As Bertha, Hershey has an easy smile, an impish spirit, and a hardy soul. (She tells Bill early on that she plans to survive on “guts and luck.”) She helps Scorsese carry over some of the feminist concerns that distinguished his debut, Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, though overall this is a far less personal project, marred by leering sex scenes and some awkward action set pieces. On his next picture, Mean Streets, Scorsese would get his groove back and then some.
(6/5/2026)
