Eric Red Recommends #12

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

By ERIC RED


SEE
RED’S IMDb PROFILE HERE

EMPEROR OF THE NORTH
(1973)

Director:
Robert Aldrich.


Writers:

Christopher Knopf, Sam Peckinpah (uncredited).
 
Cast:
Lee
Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Keith Carradine

BUY THE DVD HERE


People ask me all the time what my favorite films are, and this is one of ‘em.
Bet you never even heard of it.

This is
the best train film ever made, hands down.  It is an incredibly brutal and
utterly gritty action picture set on the railroads during the great depression
in the 1930s.  During those hard years, vagrant homeless men traveled the
country dangerously hopping freights and stealing rides on the railroads. 

The
train conductors, or Shacks, kept the hobos off their trains using whatever
murderous means necessary to stop them from hitching a free ride.  This cool
subject matter made for an exciting, unique but forgotten Hollywood movie in the
70’s, now finally available on DVD.  It’s about time. 

The story
involves an epic confrontation between a legendary tough hobo called A No. 1
(Lee Marvin) who takes on a feared and violently sadistic railroad conductor
named Shack (Ernest Borgnine) who kills any bum who tries to ride his train.  A
No. 1 vows to ride Shack’s train all the way to Portland, Oregon, a train no
tramp has ever ridden and survived, and the conductor is murderously determined
to stop him. 

 Along the way, a young punk transient named Cigarette (Keith Carradine) joins up with Lee Marvin, and the veteran hobo grudgingly teaches the
rookie the ropes of the rails.  The film culminates in one of the most kick ass
fight scenes ever filmed as Marvin and Borgnine battle to the death with axes,
chains and two-by fours on fast-moving railroad cars to prove who is the King Of
The Rails, or Emperor Of The North in hobo slang. 

The
picture starts with a bang.  It opens on sweeping helicopter shots of a steam
train winding mythically through the magnificent rugged and scenic Oregon
countryside with a rousing theme song by country singer Marty Robbins.  The
train stops to take on water.  The hulking conductor Shack patrols the railroad
perimeter checking his pocketwatch and menacingly eyeing hobos hiding in the
bushes, warning them. 

As the railroad pulls out, one foolish bum hops the train
and Shack spots his shadow between the cars.  Using a sledgehammer, Shack comes
up behind and smashes the hobo’s skull with the weapon, knocking him under the
wheels.  As the train pulls away, we see the receding corpse of the tramp
squashed on the tracks, the exposed rail running through his bloody midriff, as
the opening credits roll.  It’s a heck of a beginning 

There’s a
lack of believable movie tough guys in today’s films, but that’s no problem
here.  This picture pits two of the greatest screen tough guys at the top of
their game.  Ernest Borgnine’s evil train conductor Shack is one of the most
fearsome villains ever in my book.  Running atop the train car in his black
suit, vest and cap as he menacingly stalks hobos with a sledgehammer or heavy
chains, Borgnine is the devil incarnate. 

With just one of Shack’s murderous
squinty glances, you absolutely understand why no human being would ever dare
steal a ride on his train.  But like all great heavies, he has admirable
qualities and you respect him, because while Shack is scary, he is impossibly
tough, fearless, and has a code.  He’s a man.  And it is his train.  Unless Lee
Marvin can knock him off.

Likewise,
Lee Marvin brings a great movie star’s life experience and depth to the king of
the hobos, A No. 1.  Marvin plays him as a two-fisted, swaggering, wisecracking
and hard-nosed bum who lives by his wits and guts.  What gives A. No. 1 the edge
is heart and compassion born of hard times, plus a great sense of humor, so you
root for him.  He may have nothing else, but he has his manhood and his soul,
and for him that’s enough.

The three
other crewmembers on Shack’s train, an engineer, coal hopper and brakeman, are
colorful.  The conductor rules them with an iron fist, but his posse begins to
snap under the pressure as Shack becomes psychotically obsessed with stopping A
No 1. It is part of the edgy drama that both Shack and A No. 1 are so
dangerously determined to beat the other they disregard the safety of anyone who
gets in the way. 

In a suspenseful sequence, the fierce conductor defies office
management and recklessly orders his reluctant crew to highball the locomotive
at dangerously unsafe speed out of the train yard in a heavy fog so no tramp can
jump on, endangering his passengers and crew by risking a derailment of his
entire train.  No better, A No. 1 and the other tramps switch the tracks at the
junction, nearly causing a deadly train wreck. 

There’s
plenty of punishing action.  When hoboes Marvin and Carradine are hitching a
ride beneath the railroad undercarriage, vicious conductor Borgnine drops an
iron bar attached to a rope, feeding it under the train.  The piece of metal
bounces off the speeding trestles, brutally pummeling the bums hunkered below,
nearly dislodging them to be crushed under the wheels (this is what the real
life Shacks used to do to unfortunate hobos). 

Badly injured by the bouncing
rod, the desperate Marvin uses his foot to force the brake, slamming the
speeding train to a sudden halt, snapping the back of the crewman and knocking
another into the fire pit of the locomotive, burning him horribly.  Shack has to
start the train single-handedly, the wounded tramps jump back on and the final
confrontation ensues. 

The whole
picture builds up to the inevitable fight between Shack and A No. 1.  We want
it, we’ve been waiting for it, and when it comes it doesn’t disappoint.  Many
minutes long, the adversaries go mano a mano using two-by fours, chains and axes
in a violently realistic, bloody and bone-crunching smack down not for the faint
of heart.

Cinematically, this picture rules.  The action is highly kinetic, with most key
scenes with the characters taking place on, above or under actual moving
trains.  The thundering powerful steam engine locomotives and freight trains are
spectacularly filmed with dynamic impact and visual flair. 

Camera platforms and
towers were built on top of the trains and rigged beneath the railroad
undercarriages during shooting, so sequences are staged that put the audience
and the actors right in the middle of the action. You can viscerally feel the
trestles and rails speeding right below you.  The film is brilliantly edited and
shot, always highly atmospheric and convincing. 

The
director Robert Aldrich is one of my favorites.  His other films include “THE
DIRTY DOZEN” and the original “THE LONGEST YARD.”  No modern director was as
hard-nosed and skillful in making tough-minded uncompromising action pictures
with man’s man characters.  The only other director better at this kind of film
was Sam Peckinpah (STRAW DOGS” “THE WILD BUNCH”).

In fact, “EMPEROR OF THE
NORTH” was originally developed by Peckinpah as a project to direct himself
until conflicts with the producer led to his firing and replacement by Robert
Aldrich.  Peckinpah later said Aldrich was a better choice. Aldrich agreed. 
Nonetheless, you can feel Sam Peckinpah’s imprint all over “EMPEROR.” 

See it. 
There’s never been another film like it. 

BUY THE EMPEROR OF THE NORTH DVD HERE

READ
ALL OF ERIC RED’S REVIEWS HERE