Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin's Brutal 1973 Film EMPEROR OF THE NORTH Is Required Viewing for Movie Geeks
“Hang on for action adventure that roars like thunder!”
When I was growing up, my dad introduced me to a 1973 film called Emperor of the North. This movie had a lasting impact on me because while we watched it, my dad would tell me stories of my grandpa and the similar experiences that he had during the same time period that the film is set in.
This is a favorite film of mine, and I know a lot of people that aren’t really familiar with it. So, I thought I’d take the time to talk about it a bit and recommend to those of you looking for an incredible film that you may have never seen before. If you have seen it, this is just a reminder to revisit it!
Emperor of the North is set in 1933 during the great depression, and it pits legendary actor Ernest Borgnine against legendary actor Lee Marvin. This is actually quite a brutal film.
Borgnine plays a merciless, inhumane, and sadistic Railroad conductor named Shack. He is not a fan of hobos jumping on his train to travel, and he will kill anyone who attempts it. He has a arsenal of weapons that he’s loaded himself up with, including multiple hammers, a steel coupler pin tied to the end of a length of rope, a long chain, and a high pressure steam hose from the locomotive. Hell, during the opening title sequence we watch him as he hammers a hobo in the head causing him to fall on the track and be cut in half by the wheels of the train.
Shack meets his match in a hobo who goes by the name of A-No.-1, who is played by Marvin. After a series of events, A-No.-1 dedicates himself to ride Shack's train all the way to Portland to prove that he can pull it off and survive the trip. But Shack has a personal vendetta against him and he makes it his personal mission to beat the hell out of him and then kill him. The film escalates to one hell of a brutal fight of survival.
The hobo that can successfully ride Shack's train will have earned the title "Emperor of the North Pole." This was actually the original title of the film, but they changed it because they didn’t want people mistaking it for a Christmas movie. The original title is “a homage to the historic joke among Great Depression-era hobos that the world's best hobo was ‘Emperor of the North Pole,’ a way of poking fun at their own desperate situation, since somebody ruling over the North Pole would reign over nothing but a vast barren, cold, empty, and stark wasteland.”
This is required viewing for any movie geek, and in my opinion, it’s an awesome cinematic masterpiece. This seems like one of those old movies that time has unfortunately forgotten.
The movie has a special place in my heart, though, because it’s one of those films that I connect with my grandpa, who has since passed away, through the stories that my dad told me as a kid.
If you haven’t seen this movie, you need to watch it. Check out the trailer for it below and let us know what you think!