Emperor of the North

During the Great Depression, unemployed men ride freight trains across the United States without paying, and most crews simply tolerate them. One conductor, Shack, does not. On his line he attacks stowaways with iron bars and chains, and word of his brutality keeps riders away. A veteran hobo known as A No. 1, regarded as the best of them, takes up the challenge and boards Shack's train, joined by a younger drifter called Cigaret. What follows is a contest of nerve and endurance between the two men as the train rolls toward Portland.

Robert Aldrich directed the film, the fourteenth of the seventeen features he made, between Ulzana's Raid and The Longest Yard. Christopher Knopf wrote the screenplay, Stanley Hough produced, and 20th Century Fox and Inter Hemisphere were the production companies. Lee Marvin plays A No. 1, Ernest Borgnine plays Shack, and Keith Carradine plays Cigaret, with Charles Tyner, Malcolm Atterbury and Simon Oakland among the thirty-seven credited cast members. The film runs 118 minutes and mixes action, adventure, drama and thriller elements.

Released in May 1973, it drew a modest audience response, reflected in a TMDB rating of 6.8 out of 10 from 149 votes.