Emperor of the North
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Movie Reviews of Emperor of the North
Movie Review: The Emperor Rules!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am so thrilled that this movie is finally made available to us on DVD. All of my expectations of watching it in digital wide-screen were surpassed in every respect, mostly due to the fact that this was a great film to begin with.
This is one of those few movies which I never get tired of watching. As a big-time railroad fan, I am continually impressed with the level of authenticity in so many respects. Director Robert Aldrich took great pains incorporating 1930's-era realism into every scene. Actual live-steam-powered consists (trains) are central to this story about a railroad Conductor, Shack (Ernest Borgnine), who is obsessed with keeping his train famously free of free-loading hobos. Some would say that Shack is psychotic. I completely disagree. Rather, I see him as a man who is enforcing his employer's mandate of keeping illegal non-paying passengers (hobos) off of this Railroad's trains by any means possible. Granted, it's not pretty! But that's the way it was back then.
The bulk of this movie is actually filmed aboard and around live-steam trains on a depression-era railroad. The scenery and camera angles are nothing short of spectacular. Several minutes are actually filmed inside the cab of a racing steam locomotive as the crew makes a desperate attempt to rush their train into a siding before it collides head-on with a high-speed express passenger train. Talk about the thrill of intensity and tension!! It's the most adrenaline-packed seven-minute scene I have ever endured. Moreover, it's the real deal!
I give a lot of credit to the starring actors in doing their own dangerous stunts while around and on top of the rocking, speeding trains and even underneath the moving cars, as well. Earnest Borgnine (Conductor Shack) and Lee Marvin (hobo A-Number-One) are simply amazing in this regard. A young Keith Caradine (hobo Cigarette) is no slouch, either.
This movie does an excellent job of depicting how hobos of that time put their very lives in serious danger (illegally, I might add) by "stealing" rides aboard such trains as The Number Nineteen - Shack's train. It's almost a how-to primer on how to become a hobo. (Please don't try this on your local railroad - the real post-9/11 Railroad Police are much more sophisticated today than they were back then and are actually a lot meaner today. Plus, it's still illegal - and still very dangerous!). I will never forget the scenes of A-No.1 and Cigarette riding a train by literally hanging from the under-carriage truss rods of an old box car right in front of the spinning wheels - which could slice a man in half before he knew what had happened to him. A-Number-One warns his young apprentice, Cigarette, to not let the lullaby of the singing rails put him to sleep because he might never wake up - or at least if he does, he'll wish he hadn't.
Yes, this is somewhat violent in spots, but the overwhelming portion of the movie is not. Also, the low-tech theatrics of 1974 are quite evident in places. For example, one scene shows the body of a hobo supposedly sliced in half by a train that ran over his body. It was obviously a department store dummy divided perfectly in half at the waste. Also, the Special Effects Department used a reddish-orange paint to simulate blood. It was kind of humorous in light of today's high-tech special effects. But it doesn't detract from the story one bit.
I don't know if there is such a thing as a perfect movie, but from this rail enthusiast's perspective, Emperor of the North is one which is pretty darned close. If you enjoy a good, realistic, action-packed movie with superb acting, excellent character development, beautiful scenery, and lots of steam trains, then this is the movie for you, bar none!!
Movie Review: Hands down, the best railroad movie of all time!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you're a working railroader or just a railfan, Emperor of the North deserves to be in your DVD collection. There is no better film out there about steam railroading, period. The opening scenes of No. 19 steaming through Oregon's scenic Doe River Valley are alone enough to recommend this DVD - rarely has a steam locomotive been captured so well on celluloid. Sure, the acting can get a little corny at times, but the train scenes more than make up for this.
FYI: the film was shot on the Oregon Pacific & Eastern out of Cottage Grove, Oregon. The "main" locomotive, No. 19, is a 2-8-2 Mikado type built by Baldwin in 1915 for the Caddo & Choctaw, and it later spent time on the McCloud River and the Yreka Western before being moved to the OP&E in 1971. For the movie, No. 19 was given a different tender and a basic black paint job lacking the fancy silver trim that it normally wore. Its main duty on the OP&E was to haul the Saturday-Sunday tourist train between the Village Green Station at Cottage Grove to Culp Creek, which it did from 1971-1988. There are some fantastic close-up scenes of No. 19 in Emperor of the North, and Malcom Atterbury is perfectly cast as "Hogger," No. 19's faithful engineer.
The other engine seen in the movie is 2-8-0 No. 5 from the Magma Arizona, an American Locomotive Company product of 1922. If you look carefully you'll see that it wore three numbers in Emperor of the North - #4, #27, and #5. Both of these engines still exist. No. 19 is at Yreka, California on the Yreka Western where it is being repaired to haul tourist trains again, and No. 5 is on display at a railroad museum in Galveston, Texas.
Unfortunately, the railroad as seen in the movie no longer exists. The OP&E tracks were torn up in 1988, and the right-of-way is now a hiking trail. Interestingly, Emperor of the North was not the first movie filmed along the OP&E, as in 1926 it was used for Buster Keaton's classic film, The General (at that time the railroad was still owned by a logging firm, the J. H. Chambers Lumber Company).
We've waited a long, long time for Emperor of the North to be released on DVD, and I'd like to give a heartfelt Thank You to 20th Century Fox for bringing back a classic!
- Jeff Terry
Movie Review: Well, it's about damned time this movie was brought to dvd!
Summary: 5 Stars
As a lifelong lover of trains and the American railroads, particularly the long-gone romantic era of the steam locomotive, there's no way I could NOT recommend this excellent film. It's gritty and violent, to be sure, but beautifully shot. You can almost feel the heat of the locomotive and the swaying of the train cars, smell the smoke, soot, and sweat. The superb cast, from the leads to the supporting players, perfectly inhabit all of their characters. The period detail is spot-on, the editing and direction tight, the cinematography gorgeous. And the sequence when the hobos, in an attempt to stall Shack's train (the beautiful No. 19) so that A-Number-1 can hop onto her, divert her onto the wrong track and a possible head-on collision course with a fast-moving passenger train, is one of the most suspenseful, white-knuckle scenes you're likely to see!
If anyone has an interest in railroads & trains, adventure films, or the curiously unsung history of the men who rode the rails, I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.
As I write this review, I do not yet know what (if any) supplemental materials will be included on the dvd, but I am dearly hoping that Fox will be wise enough to include any making-of footage that's available (...Or perhaps Mr. Carradine or Mr. Borgnine would be kind enough to do a commentary track?), as this movie deserves it. As it is, I'll be happy to have this little-known treasure on dvd at long last to enjoy forever.
On a final note, I am indebted to the previous reviewer for contributing the fascinating background history to the cinematic story. Thank you very much---I will DEFINITELY have to look those books up! I hope they are readily available.
My father told me of how my grandmother, when she was a young girl, would make sandwiches for the "gentlemen of the road" who would ride the trains which chugged past her house. May their spirits ride in on in peace and glory.
Movie Review: A-No. 1 of a Movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am indebted to Messrs. Eckman and Hazen for their excellent reviews of the finest movie ever made of the romance of the rails. I have admired this movie ever since it was first released in 1973, and have seen it on TV a number of times. Like them, I have always wondered why it took so long to see it on DVD, and I rejoice that it will be available soon and at such an unbelieveably low price. My regard for it is such that I have checked on it's availability on DVD every month for the past 5 years and came away disappointed.
Mr. Hazen's detailed and fascinating review is a treasure house of hobo lore, and I am indebted to him for his list of Leon Ray Livingston's books, the model for Lee Marvin's A-No.1 movie character. I printed his review and am keeping it for future reference. Being the voracious reader I have always been, I look forward to reading these books, and to receiving the DVD in June.
At the age of 69, I was priviledged to see the last great days of the steam era and it's rag-tag denizens. "Emperor of the North" is a wonderful window into that fascinating and unique time. Borgnine, Marvin and Carradine are supurb in their roles. The cinematography, character development and screenplay cannot be faulted. The fine supporting cast includes the underrated character actor Simon Oakland as the cop who pursues Cigaret(Carradine)into the hobo camp and is forced to immitate a howling dog by it's bemused residents.
Buy this movie! You won't be disappointed.
Movie Review: As Unforgiving as the Depression itself
Summary: 5 Stars
Fantastic, unjustly underrated hobo drama of the 30s. Like Aldrich's other epic, the Dirty Dozen, he sets you up for unexpected, sudden and sadistic violence - but never for its own sake. Every frame is honest, gritty and realistic, and how refreshing to see an "authentic" film with no CGI (!).
Best of all, it's a morality play: every teenage punk boy ought to see this. A-No-1 (Marvin) is a first class, "hardcore" hobo who unwillingly takes on a brash-mouth wannabe tenderfoot (Carradine) who calls himself Cigaret; A-No. 1 teaches him how to survive, yet every step of the way, Cigaret takes credit for everything earned, and blames A-No. 1 for his own failures. Without delving into unnecessary back story, it's clear that A-No. 1 is trying to redeem his own youth by correcting the punk's mistakes - but of course he won't listen, and the consequences are gruesome.
"You could've been a meat eater, kid. I mean people - not their garbage."
And the final confrontation between A-No. 1 and The Shack is among the greatest, grittiest fights ever filmed; and the epilogue is perfect. "Keep getting the knocks till the knocks don't hurt - then you run with the train."