Film

The Emperor of the North Pole (1973)

Director: Robert Aldrich

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Set during the Depression, Aldrich's film starts out from a lovely gamesmanship premise derived from the legendary enmity between railwaymen and the hoboes who rode the rails. It's a duel to the death, developed with dark humour and nailbiting excitement, between Borgnine's sadistic guard - up to all the tricks and armed with a fearsome array of sledgehammers and steel chains - and Marvin's laconically contrary hobo, whocannot resist the challenge of making a lie of Borgnine's boast that no one has ever jumped his train and lived to tell the tale. A pity, perhaps, that the script pursues a vague political allegory instead of exploring its characters more deeply, but the vivid background detail (including a Baptist river-dunking which is the occasion for a cheeky theft of clothes) is brilliantly realised.

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