Boxcar Bertha

• Roger Corman
• David Carradine
• Martin Scorsese
• John Carradine
• None of the above

If you have any sense and are not a total movie nerd, you probably guessed Scorsese. You would normally be correct, at least in a quiz about the grand scheme of things, but you're not right in the context of this movie. Here is it "none of the above." Although Boxcar Bertha is a Corman quickie made for the drive-in market, shot in three weeks with multiple Carradines, it was in fact directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese.

This wasn't a project originated by Scorsese. He was just a hired gun on this film, which came a year before his big breakthrough with Mean Streets. Although he would eventually prove to be a contemplative filmmaker, Scorsese had no problem delivering a proper exploitation film. The characters are fairly interesting, there's plenty of action, a touch of comedy ... and there is plentiful sex. In fact, the sex scenes in this film were particularly memorable, for a couple of reasons:

• There is considerable exposure from a woman who would later become a distinguished mainstream star, namely Barbara Hershey. Not many serious actresses have a role in their career with this much nudity from every conceivable angle. The film isn't a softcore because the sex scenes occupy a small portion of the running time, but the nudity is as explicit as any softcore sex film. Looking back from the future, there is the added bonus of a famous woman wearing all that skin.

• Barbara Hershey and David Carradine weren't fakin' it. They have both admitted that they were doin' the nasty for real.

Unlike many Corman movies, this film makes at least a half-hearted attempt at social relevance. Based on the real-life autobiographical journals of Boxcar Bertha Thompson, the film tells a little bit of the story behind the workers' struggle to unionize against the railroads in the 30's. That serious subtext, combined with Scorsese's quality work, really raised this film a cut above the B-level market that it was supposed to play to. When the man had a set piece to film, by God the young Scorsese already knew what to do with it. There are some camera set-ups in this film that are exceptionally dramatic, especially the final scene, shot down at Bertha from the top of a moving boxcar, watching her run as she tries to keep up with the speeding train, the entire shot framed over the shoulders of a crucified David Carradine. Pretty heavy drive-in fare.

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 the youthful 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.