Review: Emperor of the North Pole


Set in the Depression Era, with hoboes trying to hitch rides on trains. Sicko conductor named ‘Shack’ (Ernest Borgnine) doesn’t take kindly to free-loaders, and in fact, isn’t adverse to killing the mooching bastards. No one’s ever survived hitching a ride on his train, but veteran tramp Lee Marvin decides to take up the challenge, alongside green Keith Carradine, who isn’t really your usual hobo material. A familiar face, Charles Tyner, who next starred in Aldrich’s “The Longest Yard”, has a good role as one of Borgnine’s men, whilst amongst the hoboes are such legendary faces and names as Elisha Cook Jr. (from “The Maltese Falcon” to “Carny”), Sid Haig (“Coffy”, “House of 1,000 Corpses”), stage veteran Liam Dunn, and Vic Tayback (“Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”).



Rough, tough, and thoroughly enjoyable 1973 Robert Aldrich (“The Dirty Dozen”) flick, made in his inimitable, masculine style (and yet, this is the same guy who made “Baby Jane” and “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte”). Marvin is a joy as the grizzled, sly old tramp, but Borgnine is superlative in one of his meanest, most sadistic and best-ever performances, aided by some choice close-ups I might add. Excellent supporting cast, headed by youthful Carradine, but some of the best (Elisha Cook, Matt Clark, and Sid Haig for instance) are barely glimpsed. Still, this is one helluva ‘guy movie’.



Scripted by Christopher Knopf (“Hell Bent for Leather”, with Audie Murphy), the film isn’t exactly rich with character development, but the main actors filled in most of the gaps for me that their rather symbolic characters perhaps didn’t. Excellent cinematography by Joseph Biroc (“The Towering Inferno”, “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”), but an abysmal title song sung by Marty Robbins.



Look, it’s Aldrich, Marvin, and Ernest Borgnine running around atop a train with a friggin’ axe. What more do you want? What more could you want? This is a bit of an unheralded minor classic, in my view, even if the characters might not be as fleshed out as some might prefer.



Rating: B+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more