Emperor of the North

An isolated score track is included on almost every Blu-ray released by Twilight Time. But with Robert Aldrich's "Emperor of the North", it feels like a film-specific extra regardless. The film, adapted from a pair of train-jumping memoirs (one by Jack London) and set in 1933, concerns the attempts of veteran hobo A-No.1 (Lee Marvin) and the very-green Cigaret (Keith Carradine) to do what their community considers impossible: ride all the way to Portland via a train conducted by the sadistic, unstable, and unbeatable Shack (Ernest Borgnine.) That's a plot both physical enough and simple enough to suit a silent film: two men want to ride a train, and one man has to stop them. And the score, by Frank De Vol-which often sounds like the jumbling piano tunes that would accompany screenings of silent films-answers the call of that tradition quite capably.

So if you turn on that isolated score track, you won't be missing much. There are two expository sequences early on that establish the film's mythology: A-No.1 is a legendary "'bo." Shack has killed or otherwise disposed of every hobo who's dared to sneak onto his trains. And Cigaret will lie, cheat, and steal, so long as it helps him to outshine them both. (Together, they're the good, the bad, and the ugly.) And once we know all that-we learn it all very early on-all that's left is a feature-length chase. There's rarely any talk-only gruff physicality instead. The experience of watching the film is almost entirely visual. "Emperor of the North" all but invites you to turn the sound off.

There are ideological dynamics playing out here: youthful cockiness against aged wisdom, or consummate rebellion against corporate sadism. But that emerges in the subtext. Working with cinematographer Joseph Biroc, Aldrich structures the dialogue-free shot sequences in "Emperor" so that each set piece explicitly documents a chosen process. Take the fog-laden sequence where the train starts its journey to Portland: the movie dedicates a whole handful of minutes to documenting every valve that needs to be checked (and every switch that needs to be switched, and so on) before the beast can start rolling. That same attention-to-detail is granted to the more dangerous processes, too-like when the pair of stowaways need to ride under the trains cars, and find themselves swatting away chains and links that threaten to maim them. Aldrich is so attuned to the nuances of these tasks that the movie ends up playing like an action-packed instruction manual.

The limited edition Blu-ray release also includes a theatrical trailer and original television advertisements for the film (it was originally released under the title "Emperor of the North Pole"-a worthless claim, just like that of "best hobo.") Additionally, film historian Dana Polan contributes an audio commentary for the film. He occasionally lapses into narrating the events onscreen, but he also offers scene-specific analytical commentary, often considering the geography (and geometry) that Aldrich and his crew have created in their compositions. Finally, there's a booklet featuring an essay by Julie Kirgo, who enthusiastically appraises the contributions of the artists involved. She also details the other legendary director who almost adapted the material: Sam Peckinpah.

We can wonder what Peckinpah's version would look like. It'd probably be meaner, colder, bloodier, crasser, and more kinetic, for starters (these are not qualitative judgments, mind you-they're just adjectives.) But the single-minded focus that's imbued in Aldrich's picture wouldn't be matched. It wouldn't be matched by anyone. There's a moment here where A-No.1 and Cigaret pass a confident, beautiful woman, who happens to be shaving her underarms. Cigaret stares at her. And she stares back, smiling. In a Peckinpah movie, she'd be a siren, or a femme fatale, or a symbol of the comfort that these vagrants can never achieve. But here, she's just a distraction: A-No-1 says "What's a matter, ain't you never seen anybody shave before?," and then we keep moving forward. There's an almost spartan quality to their quest, and to the movie along with it. In documenting the particulars of their physical acts, "Emperor of the North" moves the way that a train does: with no diversions.

"Emperor of the North"
Blu-ray
Screenarchives.com
$29.95