http://www.moviemartyr.com/1972/boxcarbertha.htm
This is a very direct review of Boxcar Bertha. The reviewer addresses many of the obvious problems that haunt Boxcar Bertha. I suggest anyone viewing this blog to check out this site, it expresses many of the problems I have with this film, and with current Hollywood, where style overcomes a director's central job of bringing life out of the actors.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Decision on Pulp Script - BOXCAR BERTHA
Roger Corman, famous for his exploitation films found his next muse in a young filmmaker, Martin Scorsese. Scorsese came after a bitter outing with his first film "Who's knocking at my door" to a loose adaptation of "Sister On The Road". After the positive response from both Critics and audiences to "Bonnie and Clyde." Corman had a desire to create a piece that reflected both the renegade attitude and bloody outcome of "Bonnie and Clyde." The film, as with most Corman pieces was made one a small budget of just $600,000. The film starts with exploitation, scenes of Bertha in a field wearing a loose fitting dress, with a strong wind often blowing her dress up her leg. The primary desire of Corman was violence and titilation, as it's been said he required a sex scene or the implication of sex every fifteen pages of his scripts. The plot to him was not a point of debate, violence and sex was the plot, all else was made to take a backseat.
The film tells the story of Bertha Thompson (played by Barbara Hershey) and "Big" Bill Shelley (played by David 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. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxcar_Bertha.
Eventually considered as one of the necessities in understanding who Scorsese is as a director, this was undeniably a schlock fest. In the final shootout when one man takes down five men with a sawed of shotgun, Scorsese is sure to show each pool of blood pop out of the body in a suprisingly ketchup colored blood. According to both David Carradine and Barbara Hershey, the two main characters of the film, the sex scene they share wasn't faked. Scorsese, who held Cassavetes in high respect, decided to screen a fine cut to him, Cassavetes told Scorsese he'd spent a year of his life making absolute shit.
The film was made in only 24 days.
Of course, the film was not created to make a statement or to exercise anyone's social conscience. Roger Corman was in the movie business to make a profit, and his formula was: keep costs low, fire plenty of bullets, flash plenty of flesh, capture the zeitgeist, and save money with an economical recycling of ideas and scripts from earlier movies. The "social relevance" of this film was actually an economically viable angle at the time. This was a drive-in movie and the drive-in audience skewed young. In the period 1968-1974, a film had to have a strong anti-establishment stance to attract that audience, so Corman made sure to pander to that. Also, Bonnie and Clyde was a major cultural phenomenon in that era and this was one of many "Bonnie and Clyde" clones (Bloody Mama, Big Bad Mama, Dillinger) that Corman made to cash in on that vogue. The criminals in this film may have had loftier ideals than the others mentioned, but they were still cut from the same cloth as Bonnie and Clyde - a glamorous young couple who pulled off charming robberies, and who were popular with the people, despite being despised by the authorities.
The film tells the story of Bertha Thompson (played by Barbara Hershey) and "Big" Bill Shelley (played by David 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. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxcar_Bertha.
Eventually considered as one of the necessities in understanding who Scorsese is as a director, this was undeniably a schlock fest. In the final shootout when one man takes down five men with a sawed of shotgun, Scorsese is sure to show each pool of blood pop out of the body in a suprisingly ketchup colored blood. According to both David Carradine and Barbara Hershey, the two main characters of the film, the sex scene they share wasn't faked. Scorsese, who held Cassavetes in high respect, decided to screen a fine cut to him, Cassavetes told Scorsese he'd spent a year of his life making absolute shit.
The film was made in only 24 days.
Of course, the film was not created to make a statement or to exercise anyone's social conscience. Roger Corman was in the movie business to make a profit, and his formula was: keep costs low, fire plenty of bullets, flash plenty of flesh, capture the zeitgeist, and save money with an economical recycling of ideas and scripts from earlier movies. The "social relevance" of this film was actually an economically viable angle at the time. This was a drive-in movie and the drive-in audience skewed young. In the period 1968-1974, a film had to have a strong anti-establishment stance to attract that audience, so Corman made sure to pander to that. Also, Bonnie and Clyde was a major cultural phenomenon in that era and this was one of many "Bonnie and Clyde" clones (Bloody Mama, Big Bad Mama, Dillinger) that Corman made to cash in on that vogue. The criminals in this film may have had loftier ideals than the others mentioned, but they were still cut from the same cloth as Bonnie and Clyde - a glamorous young couple who pulled off charming robberies, and who were popular with the people, despite being despised by the authorities.
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