Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Simply A Masterpiece

Beautiful, moving film.

Absolutely brilliant

Ernest Borgnine is the meanest sonofabitch on the railroad and Lee Marvin is the hobo who gives him a hard time riding the rails. The period is the Depression when hobos rode the rails with impunity and it was up to hard-as-nails guys like Ernest to stop them. Robert Aldrich's "Emperor of the North" is one of his male-orientated pictures, displaying a good deal of his signature brutality and while it's a minor work in the Aldrich canon it has much to recommend it; here it's the duel to the death between Marvin and Borgnine who makes for a truly nasty villain and is just one of the reasons why this is such a ridiculously entertaining picture. Nice work too from a young Keith Carradine as a fellow hobo with aspirations to take Marvin's crown as 'Emperor of the North'.

During the Depression of the 1930s, hobos get around by hopping onto trains, but one man wages a war against the free loaders. It's a bad sign when the film opens with a song comparing and contrasting a train and a man. The premise of the story is not particularly interesting, and the execution leaves little doubt that this was a bad idea. The acting is bad all around. Borgnine is an unbelievably sadistic conductor who would happily kill a man who gets on his train without paying. Marvin and Carradine play hobos, and the latter is rather annoying. The quality of Aldrich's films vary wildly from good to awful; this violent and ugly film is not one of his better efforts.

Basically a three character cat and mouse game revolving around trains during the Great Depression. Sometimes a little over the top, but with good acting and dialog. Ernest Borgnine plays the deluded conductor obsessed with keeping hobos off his train. Lee Marvin is the number one hobo, who vows to ride Borgnines train all the way to Portland, and Keith Carradine, full of bravura, tries to dethrone Marvin by catching the same ride. Along the way, a sort of mutual admiration develops as the two hobos deal with the sadistic Borgnine. Great Oregon scenery and a realistic depression era setting adds immeasurably. The fact that there is minimal background information about the three protagonists was a slight disappointment. - MERK

Interesting, quasi-political film of depression era hobo (Lee Marvin) - famous within hobo circles for being able to ride any train - trying to ride one guarded by meanest guy in the world (Ernest Borgnine). He picks up a young protégé (a very young Keith Carradine) along the way who -- after much resistance - he accepts as the start of the next generation of men who live by their wits and go their own way.The acting is solid throughout. The score is a bit much at times, and some of the writing is variable, but there are good scenes and thoughtful ideas about the battle between 'freedom' and playing by the rules along the way. Aka 'The Emperor of the North'.