Boxcar Bertha

“Boxcar” Bertha Thompson (Barbara Hershey, The Last Temptation of Christ), a transient young woman living in the American south in the 1930s, rides the rails bouncing from job to job and town to town, often leaving dishonest men in her wake. She eventually comes across “Big” Bill Shelly (David Carradine, Death Race 2000), a hard working laborer turned union organizer. They quickly develop a romantic relationship and, along with two friends—Rake Brown (Barry Primus, New York, New York) and Von Morton (Bernie Casey, Hit Man)—begin an old fashioned crime spree, robbing banks and trains, and becoming fast enemies of both the railway company and local law enforcement.

The sophomore narrative feature for Martin Scorsese, who also co-edited the film, Boxcar Bertha bears not only many of the hallmarks of his filmography to come but those of producers Roger and Julie Corman as well. Adapted from the book Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha, Scorsese’s film combines elements of true crime grit with the style, and excesses, expected in drive-in exploitation pictures of the 1970s. Long overlooked in the filmography of one of American, and world, cinema’s greatest filmmakers, Cinématographe is proud to bring Martin Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha to 4K UHD for the first time in the world, from a new restoration supervised by Scorsese himself.