Boxcar Bertha

In the 1930's American south, Bertha Thompson decides to live the life of a transient after her crop duster father dies in a crash leaving her alone in the world. She grows up quickly from the experiences she has with various people she meets while riding the rails. Ultimately, she ends up traveling with three others: "Big" Bill Shelly, a laborer who now speaks on behalf of workers' rights and unions; Rake Brown, a gambler not averse to cheating and who carries a gun but is too scared to ever use it; and Von Morton, a harmonica playing black man who worked as her father's mechanic. Despite their different motivations in life, the four become fiercely loyal to each other, especially Bertha and Bill, both who consider the other to be the love of their life. Besides Rake's need to cheat to make a living, none of the four is predisposed to criminal behavior, but they end up living a life of crime out of circumstance, which included a card game gone wrong. Bill in particular feels uncomfortable with the criminal behavior in and of itself, except for the good he can do for the working class in the crimes. Even before their overtly criminal activities, they riled the police, who harassed them for riding the rails and for Bill's "Bolshevik" talk. But they also rile a railway owner named Sartoris and the sadistic McIver brothers, who work as henchmen for both the authorities and Sartoris, as Bill's pro-union/pro-striking diatribes are generally against the railroad. Hence, the battle between Sartoris/the McIvers and the foursome becomes a personal one on both sides.