Boxcar Bertha (1972)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1972
Running Time	84:38
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Martin Scorsese
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Barbara Hershey David Carradine Barry Primus Bernie Casey John Carradine Victor Argo David Osterhout Grahame Pratt 'Chicken' Holleman Harry Northup Ann Morell Marianne Dole Joe Reynolds
Case	?
RPI	$9.95	Music	Gib Guilbeau Thad Maxwell

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired French Dutch Swedish Finnish Portuguese Polish Greek	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The story goes like this: having been fired only a week into his first studio feature, The Honeymoon Killers, Martin Scorsese finally got a break when Roger Corman hired him to make an exploitation film based on the "true" story Sister of the Road. The final result was Boxcar Bertha, another in a string of Bonnie and Clyde knock-offs. Famously, Scorsese is supposed to have shown the film to John Cassavettes, who apparently hugged him and said, "You just spent a year of your life making s***!" Although Cassavettes was perhaps suggesting that Scorsese should be making personal films rather than paint by the numbers studio pieces (Scorsese followed up Boxcar Bertha with Mean Streets, to critical acclaim), his description of the film is fairly apt.

    Set during the Depression and around the railroads of the American South, Boxcar Bertha follows the exploits of Bertha (Barbara Hershey) and unionist Bill Shelley (what's an exploitation flick without David Carradine?) as they rob trains and try to help struggling rail workers. The genre demands regular scenes of heavy violence and nudity and Scorsese follows the rules, churning out a plot that serves only to bring us to the obvious and expected climax. Scorsese can be seen experimenting with different camera shots and editing techniques, but most of it seems showy and employed just because he could. He also throws in a few film references, listing characters Emeric Pressburger and M. Powell in the credits (although, as far as I can tell, neither character appears in the film - Scorsese is a devoted Powell and Pressburger fan and the general consensus is that he threw the names in for fun) and an odd moment in a brothel when Bertha tells her client to "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

    The acting is not terrible but neither is it outstanding. Carradine, of course, is as wooden as ever (and I guess that's part of his charm). Hershey does the cute and innocent thing well, but has since moved on to much greater performances. There's just not a whole lot about Boxcar Bertha that really even hints at the work Martin Scorsese would go on to produce almost immediately. As such, it's worth checking out to see where Scorsese has come from and, as part of Sony's spate of cheap MGM releases, Scorsese fans can easily add this to their collection for a few dollars more than a rental. Really, though, Boxcar Bertha is for the completist only: see it once and then you'll probably forget it.

Video

    The video transfer for Boxcar Bertha is very nice, with little at all to complain about. It is presented here in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. It is also Auto Pan & Scan encoded.

    Sharpness and detail are generally very good, although at times the transfer does seem a little soft. Blacks are very solid. Occasionally shadow detail becomes murky at times (see 55:26 for example), but not terribly. Low level noise can be seen but is never a problem at all.

     This transfer's strength is in its reproduction of colour. Skin tones appear very natural, though with a hint of posterization. Very vibrant reds appear throughout the film and are transferred well without any bleeding. Reds do tend to carry a little noise though (see Hershey's dress at 55:16).

    I didn't notice any pixelization, but did notice what appeared to be Gibb effect, although not where you would usually expect to find it (29:46 around the bounty hunter's face). Aliasing appears as well (4:42). Every now and then I saw a little vertical wobble in the frame, though I imagine this occurred during shooting. At one point (34:12) the frame shifts vertically a fraction. There's also a light smatter of white film artefacts, but nothing really noticeable.

    English subtitles for the Hard of Hearing are very accurate and easy to read. Several other subtitle options are included.

    This is a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    I can only call the audio transfer suitable: it won't knock you over but it certainly does the job. The original mono recording is reproduced here as an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) track. Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks in German, French, and Spanish are also available. I listened to the English track and sampled the others.

     Dialogue is always clear and audio sync is usually accurate. Sometimes ADR sync doesn't quite match up, but very rarely.

    Music consists mostly of blues harmonica and, even if a little clichéd, suits the film well enough.

    This is of course a reproduction of mono sound in all its glory so there is no surround activity at all. The subwoofer is also silent. If played in Pro Logic mode, audio is directed to the centre speaker. There's not a whole lot of depth or range to the soundtrack (the numerous explosions and gunshots always sound flat and a little tinny, as stock sound effects usually do) but the audio is certainly suitable for the film and is largely hiss and crackle free.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras.

Menu

    The menu is the same static, silent menu that seems to appear on all the cheap MGM releases.

    Boxcar Bertha has been released in identical versions in Region 1 and Region 2. The same disc is also part of the Region 1 MGM Scorsese Box Set. Region 4's price wins out, but there's no real reason to favour any particular release.

    Boxcar Bertha is not a fantastic film but is interesting to watch as Martin Scorsese's first studio feature.

    The video is very good.

    The audio is nicely reproduced monaural sound.

    There are no extras

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall