Emperor of the North Pole [Emperor of the North] **** (1973, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Keith Carradine) – Classic Movie Review 5943

The splendid 1973 movie Emperor of the North Pole [Emperor of the North] is a spectacular, violently tough slap-up Thirties Oregon, Depression-set action thriller from producer-director Robert Aldrich, with a great script by Christopher Knopf, based partly on the books The Road by Jack London and From Coast to Coast with Jack London by A No. 1 (the pen-name of Leon Ray Livingston).

Ernest Borgnine stars as Shack the viciously brutal conductor/ guard of the number 19 train on the railroad who attacks tramps trying to ride on his train. Lee Marvin also stars as the man who wants to be the first to beat him, A No. 1, the best train hopping hobo tramp in the Northwest, and young Keith Carradine co-stars as his enemy Cigaret, who wants to challenge him too. Shack’s vendetta against A No. 1 is personal.

The great, magnetic, grimly determined performances and the fired-up, muscular direction, some thrilling train sequences, Joseph F Biroc’s shining photography and Depression period detail, and the weird parable story add up to a compellingly different style of action adventure. Aldrich delivers it is style, complete with a mesmerising touch of folly and grandeur about it. Filmed on startling-looking locations in Oregon, it is one of the wayward Aldrich’s oddest and best films.

Also in the cast are Charles Tyner, Malcolm Atterbury, Elisha Cook Jr, Simon Oakland, Matt Clark, Hal Baylor, Joe Di Reda, Liam Dunn, Diane Dye, Robert Foulk, Jim Goodwin, Harry Caesar, Vic Tayback, Sid Haig, John Steadman, Dave Willock, Karl Lukas and Lance Henriksen.

After all the good work, it struggled at the box office, costing $3,705,000 and taking $2 million in the US. But Marvin and Borgnine were giants, and we will never see their like again. Aldrich too.

It was re-released as Emperor of the North.

Aldrich liked young Keith Carradine: ‘I think that Keith Carradine, if he’s careful – I don’t think he is careful – and if he’s prudent about the selection of his parts, can be a great big movie star. I think that whoever’s advising him is making some terrible selections about material. Because I think the guy is gifted, he’s talented, he’s attractive.’ Carradine worked for Robert Altman in McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974) and Nashville, and for Alan Rudolph in Welcome to LA, Choose Me (1984), Trouble in Mind (1985) and The Moderns (1988).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5943

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