Emperor of the North Pole (1973)

Original title

Emperor of the North

Directed by

Robert Aldrich

Genre

drama film, action film

Country

United States

Runtime

2h 02m

Rated

PG

Rating

6.8 of 10 from 144 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Two hobos struggle to survive and outwit a sadistic railroad conductor during the Great Depression in 1930s Oregon. The older hobo takes on a young companion, and together they try to ride a train against the conductor's brutal orders.

roughbleakgrittytenseslow-burngrimdarkly comicvisceral

What happens

Emperor of the North Pole is a 1973 American action adventure film directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Keith Carradine, and Charles Tyner. It was later re-released on home media (and is more widely known) under the shorter title Emperor of the North, ostensibly chosen by studio executives to avoid being mistaken for a heartwarming holiday story. This original title is an 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, implying that somebody ruling over the North Pole would reign over nothing but a vast, barren, cold, empty, and stark wasteland. The film depicts the story of two hobos' struggle (esp. vs. "The Establishment") during the Great Depression in 1930s Oregon. Carradine's character, Cigaret, uses the moniker that Jack London used during his hobo escapades, and like London, is portrayed as a young traveling companion to the older Livingston's A-No.-1 (played by Marvin), but that is where (some assert) the similarity between Carradine's character and Jack London ends, as Cigaret is portrayed in the film as immature, loud-mouthed, and not bright, opposite A-No.-1's gracious and graceful seasoned veteran. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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