Emperor of the North (1973)

... of the 70ies and one of the best movies of all the people involved in this project! Originally a project of Sam Peckinpah, it was then directed by director Bob ALDRICH, an equal to Sam, but not yet having gained the reputation he deserves. While Sam did much fewer movies than Robert and was a director, who was difficult to handle (a real GENIUS!), Aldrich was easier to handle and did movies, which were less controversial, in other words: not as brutal as Sams. But that doesn't make him any less good director. He has a distinct style and the same appreciation for great tough dramas, just check out ULZANA'S RAID, for example.

EMPEROR is probably his best movie, simply a must-see. I watched this the first time when I was a teenager and this did run in late-night TV (of course, being still pretty brutal, this is nothing for prime-time, ha ha). I Liked the German title "EIN ZUG FÃœR ZWEI HALUNKEN", but being less movie-educated 2 decades ago than I am today, I didn't expect much and just gave it a try. It was just AWESOME, I was so thrilled, that from that day I took all efforts needed to see as many from Aldrich's movies (and lee Marvin's, of course) as possible.

MARVIN and BORGNINE play the roles of their lives and are possible the best imaginable actors for these roles (although at the time the movie was made, you had a lot of great tough guys to choose from, while today you'd have real troubles finding any actors, who could believable play these roles - they're all weepies now), the script is tough and intelligent and although the movie runs for nearly 2 hours, it's never boring. When no action takes place (and no movie needs to have only action-scenes, that gets boring within a quarter hour, just try THE ROCK to see how it should NOT be done), you have superb photography (I agree with the guy describing this one as one of the best-photographed movies of all time) and clever dialogue, pretty philosophical at times. The scenery is breathtaking, the battles tough and brutal (and short: violence is usually an eruption, which happens fast and doesn't take long), the story great and the actors perfect! What more could one ask for?? A real winner all the way!

Such a pity that directors like Peckinpah and ALDRICH are not among as anymore and today's movies can't hold up with such masterpieces, because they're mostly overpriced "blockbuster"-sh**, which try to appeal to everyone (to cover their 50 to 100 million $ production budget) and therefore have no real style and because today's directors simply can't do it as well as their ancestors could direct (with 1 or 2 exceptions, maybe).

Check this out, you won't be disappointed!

Fmovies: There were just so many great B movies made in the 70s and this is one of the best. Stark and cruel but completely watchable and with two excellent male leads, this brutal hobo railroad drama remains fixed in most viewers minds forever. It is also part of two great sub genres...the depression years drama and the railroad thriller. So many films to choose from in either genre and practically all watchable and enjoyable. EMPEROR was released for about 10 days and never surfaced again. I used to add it in as a double feature in my cinema right up until about 1980 and it always commanded major discovery status. The problem is the title: and like DAY OF THE LOCUST or EMPIRE OF THE SUN or other confusing titles the pubic never found it themselves. It failed on first release and was only repeatedly discovered when the public went to a double feature as described above. In Oz it was released only as EMPEROR OF THE NORTH. You could almost mix'n'match films in those days; THE STREETFIGHTER, BUSTER AND BILLIE, THE SPIKES GANG, FROM NOON TILL THREE, WHATS THE MATTER WITH HELEN, BLOODY MAMA, all interchangeable in any programme. Others here can tell you the story, but I will tell you to find it yourself and have a major discovery film enter your library.

The credits of Aldrich's Emperor of the North don't mention the fact that it is an adaptation of Jack London's story 'The Road'.

The Road is a long short story/short novel, based on London's own experiences as a young man, riding the rails as a hobo. Most importantly, the central conflict between Borgnine's Shack and Marvin's A Number One, and the methods both use to overcome their enemy are very closely based on the Jack London story, in which a group of hobo's set out to ride the train on which a particularly brutal shack, or railway guard works.

Emperor of the North fmovies. For you teenagers out there, or parents of teenagers who have expressed a desire to run away from home and ride the rails, this movie is the perfect antidote. Anyone who sees this film you will never even consider hopping on a boxcar again. Directed by Robert Aldrich, and bearing his unmistakable anarchist's stamp, it tells the story of two hoboes, one, A-1, played by Lee Marvin, a seasoned, lone wolf, and the other, Cigaret (Keith Carradine), a young boaster who tags along for the rides, and forever tries to convince his friend and mentor that he is in the same league with him in the art of hobodom, and maybe even better. The story revolves around the attempt of both men to ride the Number 19, a train lorded over by vicious railroadman Shack (Ernest Borgnine), who is known for despising hoboes, and for attacking them with hammer and chains! Director Robert Aldrich works wonders with this tall tale, some of it based on true stories. His fondness for improbable material is evident here, as once again he shows himself fascinated by the seemingly impossible task. Aldrich has a real feeling for what one might call WASP schmaltz, and he pours it on like ketchup on a Big Mac. He obviously loves railraods, old railroad uniforms, tramps, the Pacific Northwest, junkyards and the great outdoors generally, all copiously present here, aided in no small measure by Joe Biroc's lyrical photography.

The Emperor Of the North Pole is more character study than story. Marvin's character of A-1 is independent, shrewd and ethically minded, with a great sense of style. For him, being a hobo is almost a calling, and his acceptance by his fellow tramps constitutes a kind of knighthood, a status he guards jeaously. His opposite number, Shack, is a sadistic company man who relishes lording over others with a big stick, sometimes literally. To call him a type A personality would be a gross understatement. Unlike A-1, Shack has no sense of style; indeed, he doesn't even seem to own his personality. The railroad does. Cigaret is a kid, with a big ego and even bigger mouth who loves to tell stories about his exploits, none of them true. He fools no one, least of all A-1, who tries to teach him a thing or two, with only middling success. The clashing of these three personalities constitutes the bulk of the film, and is basically what it is about.

I sense that Aldrich, and screenwriter Christopher Knopf, were aiming for a larger than life effect, and that they were trying to create a sort of Great American Myth, like Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed. They only partially succeed at this. Though Knopf's dialogue is at times excellent, the movie's realism works against its mythic qualities, and there's too much swearing. There's too much of a weary, real life-battered aspect to the characters for them to rise to iconic stature. Also, Cigaret's volubility is often obnoxious, and he seems to be saying the same things, again and again; and though Carradine plays him well enough, he comes across as too middle class and at times too delicate for the role. The action scenes on the other hand, are brilliantly done, and the climactic fight at the end is well worth the wait.

When I first saw this movie, it was released as "Emperor of the North", although some of the early promos added "Pole' to the title. Since the top hobo of the old days was "Emperor of the North Pole", I assumed the studio wasn't sure if the average viewer would get the title. The literary character of A-number One, is based on a legendary hobo from the turn of the century, who was possibly real, as his graffiti 'A-1', or A-No-1, appeared regularly on water towers and bridges along the rails all over the USA. This film really gets the feel of a depression-era USA, and the conflict between Marvin and Borgnine is visceral and cunning, and the scene with the near-miss of the oncoming train has great tension. Carridine is great as a blowhard punk who might grow up to be something. This flick has an almost religious overtone of good versus evil. It also has a good feel for railroading, kinda like ""The Train"

This is the kind of story that Tom Wolfe might have written. It's about what he would have called a "status-sphere" and ordinary sociologists would have called a subculture. It's about competition within a limited environment, about acquiring status, about working your way up the ladder of prestige within a particular specialized structure by means of courage, skill, and strategy. Only instead of the wild blue yonder, or landing on the heaving deck of an aircraft carrier, or NASCAR racing, the thing to be conquered here is Ernest Borgnine, the sadistic conductor who chuckles as he throws hobos off his train, sometimes to their deaths, kind of redoing his Fatso Judson number, so evil that if he did not exist it would be necessary to prevent him.

It's a classical subculture in that it has all the features of a closed world with its own values. Everyone seems to know everyone else. And, as in most subcultures, including those that used to be called "primitive societies," the initiate is given a new name. In other movies exploring such subcultures they may have names like "Fast Eddy," "Minnesota Fats," "Maverick," "Dragstrip," "Charlie the Gent." Here they have names like "A Number 1" (Lee Marvin), "Cigaret" (Keith Carradine), and "Shack" (Borgnine). They even had their own written language, a set of pictographs scratched into rocks or written in dirt, conveying messages like, "This family good for a free meal," or , "Work for a meal," or, "Stay away. Cops." There were small communities of hobos, often carved out of track-side garbage dumps.

Interesting cast, by the way, a lot of familiar faces in bit parts -- Simon Oakland, Elija Cook Jr.

Makeup and Wardrobe Departments have done a fine job of turning them into 'Bos. They don't look Hollywood dirty, with a few smears of mud. They just look dirty. Their clothing is filthy. All in all, a good delousing looks called for. Marvin's face, by the time this was released, looked just beat-up enough, and from life, not booze. And check out his decaying lower incisors.

The plot has to do with a duel of wits between Marvin, who is determined to demonstrate his skill at the top of the status ziggurat by riding Borgnine's train to Porland, OR. Borgnine, much to the puzzlement of the rest of the train crew, is obsessed with keeping his freight train clean of hitch-hikers. He's fiendishly clever in smoking out and hurting riders. Carradine is the kind of youth often called "callow." He brags a lot and is brave but, alas, is unable to absorb the rules of the game because he plays for reasons of self aggrandizement, not for the team. He winds up in the drink.

There's something else about this movie that may keep a viewer interested. It takes place during the depression. The trains are slow, fed by coal, and powered by steam. They rock back and forth gently, as if trying to put a passenger or a stowaway to sleep. And they travel through a sunny evergreen wilderness in the Northwest. It's the kind of scenic journey you now have to pay for if you want to make a round trip to San Juan, CO. What was in the 1930s essential to a certain kind of existence has now been vulgarized and turned into a tourist's delight.

It's a small story about small people. There is nothing epic about it. The score seems to owe something to Burt Bacharach, who was so successful a few years earli