Emperor of the North

[Eddie Love]

The other day I was watching the HBO Making of… documentary for their mouth-watering, mini-series remake of MILDRED PIERCE and the director of that, Todd Haynes, made an interesting extrapolation on a point that’s long fascinated me; why are so many of the revered classics of the 70s period pieces often set in the depression-era 30s? Haynes’s point had something to do with the 70s reflecting back on the last period of progressive political ascendance and the woman’s place within those times. (I think.) I’m more inclined to believe that filmmakers who grew up watching the classic films of the 30s wanted to revisit their genre forms with a cinematic vocabulary that had been liberated in a host of technical regards as well as casting off restrictive societal mores.

In any event, it’s interesting that not simply classics like THE GODATHER and CHINATOWN, but also lots of mainstream fare were period pieces. One lost title in that number is 1973’s EMPEROR OF THE NORTH a film that re-united the director of THE DIRTY DOZEN with two of its stars for a one-of a kind movie that deserves to stand alongside some of the classic depression pictures of the 70s.

The film concerns an obscure subculture in Depression-era America; the homeless, jobless men whose only hope of finding work depended on their illegally hitching rides on railway lines that traverse the Southwestern and Northwestern United States. Some of these tramps, however, simply seem solely determined to build their notoriety as they thwart the railroad workers bent on tossing them off, the worst of these being the sadistic Shack (Ernest Borgnine) who’s fanatical about keeping bums off his train. When a hobo encampment bets that legendary tramp “A No. 1” (Lee Marvin) can ride Shack’s train, and the railroad workers who despise Shack and his methods get in on the action, a battle royal takes to the tracks.

This is truly a unique film; it revolves around scenes of guys doing things that you’ll simply never see in any other movie ever. It’s fascinating to watch the mechanics of Marvin trying to get on the train and the lengths that Borgnine goes to thwart him. At no point are you likely to say, “Oh, I know what’s gonna happen here,” and reflect back on some other title from the genre of Throw Hobos From the Train movies. Clearly a great deal of research went into, not only the time period, but also the trains themselves and the antics their free riders employed and the bygone lingo both sides used.



Watching this I couldn’t help marveling at Lee Marvin’s presence. With his grizzled face and that voice, he was a man who just commanded the screen, who filled it with his stature. (And it wasn’t that he was the biggest guy in terms of bulk, but he was just perfectly proportioned.) He had no vanity, -- name another star who, in most of his movies, looked like absolute shit. And his facility with different genres serves a film like this perfectly. You never know if he’s going to be hilarious or threatening – even within the same picture, the same performance or scene. Today, I think he’s that rarity: the underrated icon.

Borgnine is imposingly brutal as the railroad enforcer. As the young bum who Marvin takes under his wing a very young Keith Carradine is also quite good and strikes a gangly figure that’s sometimes comic, but also unpredictably sinister. The dynamic between the two bums is the heart of the story, more so even than the conflict between A No. 1 and Shack.

This film wasn’t a hit when it came out, and it doesn’t have much of a reputation today, and I can see why. There are impressive sequences and it revolves around a fascinating subject, but to its detriment, I think, it doesn’t offer us much stylistic handholding, as such, people may not be sure what to make of it. If it were done today, and I can imagine this subject matter as a Coen Brothers picture, I bet it would be well received. Frankly, if it had been made as a Tim Conway / Don Knots vehicle that exclusively mined the essentially comic nature of the story, it wouldn’t have been surprising.

But Aldrich and company hold back. They don’t let the tone dictate our reaction to what we’re watching. There’s an almost Brechtian set-up of the chorus-like rail yard workers and the bums in their Hoovervilles who comment on the action, but still, the movie doesn’t really resonate as an allegory, which maybe it would if the filmmaking where more presentational, if things were commented on more. (The only time that does happen is when the scoring gets a little too cute in a few scenes towards the end.) Otherwise, this is a really odd duck, not quite a pure action picture, not really a serious drama and yet not truly a comedy, though there is humor throughout. I also think the movie missed the mood of the period of its release – if it had been more obvious and barbed, it may have landed harder. As it is, it’s brutally anti-heroic, there’s no one really to root for. If A No. 1 were made into an iconoclastic rebel in an epic showdown against the establishment, audiences may have keyed into this. However, the movie is less obvious than that, and the stakes these men are fighting over are frankly trivial, even if the film doesn’t spell that out.

EMPEROR OF THE NORTH would make a great double bill with THE STING. Both pictures immerse themselves in the bygone cultures they depict, and are informed by the detail and language of the period. And yet, both films, by today’s standards are stylistically low-key; they don’t bury you in that period. THE STING succeeds at being more entertaining, but you should by all means book the trip on EMPEROR OF THE NORTH for a wild ride.