Emperor of the North Pole

1933: The Great Depression hits the USA. Itinerant hobos secretly board freight trains to travel long distances illegally. The king among them is nicknamed A-No.-1 (Lee Marvin) and challenges the sadistic train driver Shack (Ernest Borgnine), who will stop at nothing to keep the hobos off his train. With the inexperienced but boastful hobo Cigaret (Keith Carradine) in tow, A-No-1 boards Shack's train. Hardly any other director has smuggled subversive ideas into popular Hollywood cinema as consistently as Robert Aldrich. The contemporary image of Emperor of the North Pole is a sarcastic allegory about social development - Shack stands for the reactionary establishment, A-No.-1 for anarchistic individualism, and the opportunistic youth in between. In addition, Aldrich created a masterpiece of pure action staging, realized in gripping choreographies on the train, which races over the sleepers like the film's frames through the projector. (C.H.)