This low-budget 1972 Corman production was directed, amazingly enough, by the pre-legendary Martin Scorsese, who was also on camera briefly. Barbara Hershey’s nudity was the film’s only truly memorable aspect.
5 thoughts on “A young Barbara Hershey naked in Boxcar Bertha”
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I love the his Poe films of the 60s. In particular the ones with Price and Lorre (“Ladies, can you spare a dime for a moral cripple?”).
Corman’s an interesting guy. Stanford engineer, spent a year at Oxford. He seems to be the anti-Weinstein with regards to reputation. He made a ton of oney of B-films, but also distributed a bunch of Oscar-winning foreign films. There’s a documentary on him I might have to track down.
According to Wired, “James Cameron, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Curtis Hanson, Ron Howard, John Sayles and Martin Scorsese all got their starts working for Corman.”
I don’t think that means they did their first directing for Corman. I think it means Corman give them a start in movies in some capacity. (For example, I think Corman hired Cameron to do f/x or miniatures or something. I forget the details but I don’t think Corman gave Cameron his first chance to direct.)
Jonathan Demme for one. Demme would give Corman after he hit it big (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Manchurian Candidate).
Many very good directors got there start directing Roger Corman’s low budget productions. I have to wonder how many people that were working on that film with Scorsese would be surprised that 10 years later he would be considered one of the greatest directors of all time. How many people WATCHING the film would be surprised…