Beautiful, interesting, incredible cinema.
BOXCAR BERTHA
Synopsis
“Boxcar” Bertha Thompson, a transient woman in Arkansas during the violence-filled Depression of the early ’30s, meets up with rabble-rousing union man “Big” Bill Shelly. The two team up to fight the corrupt railroad establishment and begin a life of crime.
Synopsis
“Boxcar” Bertha Thompson, a transient woman in Arkansas during the violence-filled Depression of the early ’30s, meets up with rabble-rousing union man “Big” Bill Shelly. The two team up to fight the corrupt railroad establishment and begin a life of crime.
Our take
Crafting sly portraits of American sin from lurid exploitation fare, this gleefully scrappy early work heralds Martin Scorsese’s emergence as a seminal director. Brash and kinetic yet sweeping in scope, this outlaw odyssey through the Depression-era South is a panoramic vision of national violence.