The Emperor of The North

Emperor of the North Pole From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Emperor of the North

original film poster
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Produced by Kenneth Hyman
Stan Hough
Screenplay by Christopher Knopf
Story by Jack London (uncredited)
Starring Lee Marvin
Ernest Borgnine
Keith Carradine
Music by Frank De Vol
Cinematography Joseph F. Biroc
Editing by Michael Luciano
Studio Inter-Hemisphere
20th Century Fox
Distributed by 20th Century Fox (USA, theatrical)
Fox-MGM (West Germany)
ABC USA TV airing
Release date(s) 1973
Running time 118 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $2 million[1]

Emperor of the North Pole is a 1973 American film starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, and Keith Carradine. It was re-released under the shorter title Emperor of the North, and is better known under the latter name.

The film is about hobos during the 1930s and is set in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is based, in part, 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), although both of those books predate the 1930s by a few decades. Carradine's character, Cigaret, uses the same moniker that Jack London used on the road, and like London, is portrayed as a young traveling companion to the older A-No.-1 (played by Marvin), but that is otherwise where the similarity between Carradine's character and Jack London ends, as Cigaret is portrayed in the film as immature, loud-mouthed, and none too bright. The title is a reference to a joke among hobos during the Great Depression 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 a wasteland.
Plot
Shack is a sadistic bully of a railroad conductor who takes it upon himself to forcibly remove any hobo who tries to ride on his train. Shack has an assortment of makeshift weapons: a hammer, a steel rod, and a chain.

A hobo who is a hero to his peers, A-No.1, manages to hop the train with the younger, less-experienced Cigaret not far behind. At the next stop, A-No.1 evades Shack and escapes into the hobo jungle, but Cigaret is caught. Shack threatens to kill Cigaret, who is bragging that he and he alone got a free ride.

Shack is distracted when he gets the message that A-No.1 (whom he knows by reputation) has announced that he will become the first hobo to ride Shack's train all the way to Portland.

The other hobos agree that the first who can successfully ride Shack's train will have earned the title "Emperor of the North Pole." Railroad workers place bets whether A-No.-1 can do it, spreading the news far and wide over the telegraph, Shack being widely known and disliked.

A-No.1 hops the train and does everything he can to steer clear of Shack, pulling a series of pranks with the help of other hobos, such as running Shack's train into a siding. He tries to rid himself of the company of Cigaret, who tags along and makes a general pest of himself. Shack succeeds in ejecting the two, but they board a fast passenger train which overtakes Shack's train and ride it to Salem, Oregon.

There they have several farcical encounters, including one with a policeman who chases the two into the Salem hobo jungle, accusing them of stealing a turkey. They also encounter a Holiness minister holding an outdoor baptism service.

The two hobos reboard Shack's train after it arrives in Salem. The story ends with a climactic fight, involving heavy chains, planks of wood and an ax. A-No.1 ultimately has the bloodied Shack at his mercy, but instead of killing him, he just throws him off the train. He then tosses Cigaret off for bragging about how "they" defeated Shack, telling the kid he could have become a good bum but he's got no class.

Films directed by Robert Aldrich

1950s Big Leaguer (1953) ·Apache (1954) ·Vera Cruz (1954) ·Kiss Me Deadly (1955) ·The Big Knife (1955) ·Autumn Leaves (1956) ·Attack (1956) ·Ten Seconds to Hell (1959) ·The Angry Hills (1959)

1960s The Last Sunset (1961) ·Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) ·What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) ·4 for Texas (1963) ·Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) ·The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) ·The Dirty Dozen (1967) ·The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) ·The Killing of Sister George (1968)

1970s Too Late the Hero (1970) ·The Grissom Gang (1971) ·Ulzana's Raid (1972) ·Emperor of the North Pole (1973) ·The Longest Yard (1974) ·Hustle (1975) ·Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977) ·The Choirboys (1977) ·The Frisco Kid (1979)

1980s ...All the Marbles (1981)

Filming locationThe film was shot in and around the city of Cottage Grove, Oregon along the right-of-way of the Oregon, Pacific and Eastern Railway (OP&E).[2] Willis Kyle, President of the OP&E in 1972, allowed the film company unlimited access to make the film.[citation needed] Oregon, Pacific and Eastern's rolling stock, including two steam locomotives (one of these being #19, a type 2-8-2 Mikado), appear in the film.[2] This was the same location used by Buster Keaton for his 1927 railroad feature The General. Also featured in the film is the Dorena Reservoir, located about 10 miles east of Cottage Grove,[3] and OP&E's railyard in downtown Cottage Grove
References1.^ Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History, Scarecrow Press, 1989 p232
2.^ a b "Oregon, Pacific & Eastern Railway". Abandoned Railroads of the Pacific Northwest. http://www.brian894x4.com/OPandErailroad.html. Retrieved 2006-11-09.
3.^ "Row River Trail: Harms Park". City of Cottage Grove, Oregon. http://www.cottagegrove.org/trail/htm/harms.htm. Retrieved 2006-11-09.




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The trestle bridge at Harms Park was one of several locations immortalized on the silver screen. Movies filmed along the railway included "Stand By Me" with River Phoenix, "Emperor of the North" with Ernest Borginine, and in 1926, "The General" with Buster Keaton.

The Road and The Emperor of the North

Barring accidents, a good hobo, with youth and agility, can hold a train down despite all the efforts of the train-crew to "ditch" him -- given, of course, night-time as an essential condition. When such a hobo, under such conditions, makes up his mind that he is going to hold her down, either he does hold her down, or chance trips him up. There is no legitimate way, short of murder, whereby the train-crew can ditch him. That train-crews have not stopped short of murder is a current belief in the tramp world. Not having had that particular experience in my tramp days I cannot vouch for it personally. But this I have heard of the "bad" roads. When a tramp has "gone underneath," on the rods, and the train is in motion, there is apparently no way of dislodging him until the train stops. The tramp, snugly ensconced inside the truck, with the four wheels and all the framework around him, has the "cinch" on the crew -- or so he thinks, until some day he rides the rods on a bad road. A bad road is usually one on which a short time previously one or several trainmen have been killed by tramps. Heaven pity the tramp who is caught "underneath" on such a road -- for caught he is, though the train be going sixty miles an hour.

The Road (Kindle Locations 185-193). by Jack London
BLOWS OF THE FLYING COUPLING PIN AND THE MURDER OF TRAMPS-A VERITABLE TATOO OF DEATH
"shack" (brakeman) takes a coupling-pin and a length of bell-cord to the platform in front of the truck in which the tramp is riding. The shack fastens the coupling-pin to the bell-cord, drops the former down between the platforms, and pays out the latter. The coupling-pin strikes the ties between the rails, rebounds against the bottom of the car, and again strikes the ties. The shack plays it back and forth, now to this side, now to the other, lets it out a bit and hauls it in a bit, giving his weapon opportunity for every variety of impact and rebound. Every blow of that flying coupling-pin is freighted with death, and at sixty miles an hour it beats a veritable tattoo of death. The next day the remains of that tramp are gathered up along the right of way, and a line in the local paper mentions the unknown man, undoubtedly a tramp, assumably drunk, who had probably fallen asleep on the track.
a characteristic illustration of how a capable hobo can hold her down, I am minded to give the following experience. I was in Ottawa, bound west over the Canadian Pacific. Three thousand miles of that road stretched before me; it was the fall of the year, and I had to cross Manitoba and the Rocky Mountains. I could expect "crimpy" weather, and every moment of delay increased the frigid hardships of the journey. Furthermore, I was disgusted. The distance between Montreal and Ottawa is one hundred and twenty miles. I ought to know, for I had just come over it and it had taken me six days. By mistake I had missed the main line and come over a small "jerk" with only two locals a day on it. And during these six days I had lived on dry crusts, and not enough of them, begged from the French peasants.

The Road (Kindle Locations 200-205).
BLIND BAGGAGE EXPLAINED
I may as well explain here what a blind baggage is. Some mail-cars are built without doors in the ends; hence, such a car is "blind." The mail-cars that possess end doors, have those doors always locked. Suppose, after the train has started, that a tramp gets on to the platform of one of these blind cars. There is no door, or the door is locked. No conductor or brakeman can get to him to collect fare or throw him off. It is clear that the tramp is safe until the next time the train stops. Then he must get off, run ahead in the darkness, and when the train pulls by, jump on to the blind again. But there are ways and ways, as you shall see.

The Road (Kindle Locations 232-237).
THE SHACK RIDES OUT THE BLIND
For this is the way it works. When the train starts, the shack rides out the blind. There is no way for him to get back into the train proper except by jumping off the blind and catching a platform where the car ends are not "blind." When the train is going as fast as the shack cares to risk, he therefore jumps off the blind, lets several cars go by, and gets on to the train. So it is up to the tramp to run so far ahead that before the blind is opposite him the shack will have already vacated it.

The Road (Kindle Location 244).

The Road (Kindle Locations 241-244).
WEEDING OUT PROCESS
At the next stop, as we ran forward along the track, I counted but fifteen of us. Five had been ditched. The weeding-out process had begun nobly, and it continued station by station. Now we were fourteen, now twelve, now eleven, now nine, now eight. It reminded me of the ten little niggers of the nursery rhyme. I was resolved that I should be the last little nigger of all. And why not? Was I not blessed with strength, agility, and youth? (I was eighteen, and in perfect condition.) And didn't I have my "nerve" with me? And furthermore, was I not a tramp-royal? Were not these other tramps mere dubs and "gay-cats" and amateurs alongside of me? If I weren't the last little nigger, I might as well quit the game and get a job on an alfalfa farm somewhere.

The Road (Kindle Locations 251-256).

By the time our number had been reduced to four, the whole train-crew had become interested. From then on it was a contest of skill and wits, with the odds in favor of the crew. One by one the three other survivors turned up missing, until I alone remained. My, but I was proud of myself! No Croesus was ever prouder of his first million. I was holding her down in spite of two brakemen, a conductor, a fireman, and an engineer. Reference to Croesus

The Road (Kindle Location 258).

The Road (Kindle Locations 256-259).
I wait in the darkness I am conscious of a big thrill of pride. The overland has stopped twice for me -- for me, a poor hobo on the bum. I alone have twice stopped the overland with its many passengers and coaches, its government mail, and its two thousand steam horses straining in the engine. And I weigh only one hundred and sixty pounds, and I haven't a five-cent piece in my pocket!The Road (Kindle Locations 274-276).

The Road (Kindle Locations 193-200).