This week the roundtable goes rail-hopping by way of the often-overlooked 1973 Lee Marvin classic, EMPEROR OF THE NORTH. At times brutal and often poignant, EMPEROR is the story of master hobo, A No. 1 (Marvin), whose turf is challenged by a young tough played by Keith Carradine.

Bill, our master of shameful ceremonies, recently pondered “Where has this movie been all my life.” With an endorsement like that, the rest of us had to check it out!

So grab a short dog of Gallo White Port, embrace your rot, and enjoy EMPEROR OF THE NORTH!

Stewart: EMPEROR OF THE NORTH is about that most ancient of rivalries: Hobos versus train conductors. Set in the Pacific Northwest during the Great Depression, Lee Marvin stars as “A No. 1,” a hobo king whose reputation precedes him as the wisest and toughest man to ever ride the rails. But bravado meets its match in the form of Shack, played by Ernest Borgnine, ruthless conductor of Engine 19. Shack is known for dispatching ‘bos on his train like rats in a cellar. Nobody rides his cars without a ticket! Nobody but Lee Marvin… bitch. Co-starring is Keith Carradine as the puny “Cigaret.” He’s got a lot to learn from A No. 1 if he thinks he can be Emperor of the North.

Guys, this movie has quickly jumped nearly to the top of my all time favorite screenings at the House of Shame. It’s got great tough guy acting, some of the best depicted train and boxcar footage I’ve ever seen and it sheds light on a subculture I had no idea existed. I learned so much! This will help a great deal when it comes time for me to trade in my cameras and computers for a Rhode Island red and a bucket of axel grease.

Bill: At first its a little disconcerting to see a dirt-encrusted, shabbily dressed Lee Marvin. I’m used to his cleaner and classier tough guy persona in films such as POINT BLANK and PRIME CUT. But this is before he asserts his position at the top of the hobo hierarchy, beating off rivals with a flapping chicken, humiliating a policeman into howling like a dog, and consistently demonstrating his unrivaled prowess at riding the underbellies and curved tops of charging locomotives — hell yeah, even as a bum, Lee Marvin’s as cool as cool gets.

This also has to be Ernest Borgnine’s greatest role. usually a supporting actor, rarely does Borgnine dominate a film in this way, so you can tell he’s making the most of it. With his madly popping eyes, jack-o-lantern grin and arsenal of deadly metal weapons, he’s like the Captain Ahab of the rails, obsessed with smiting the smug white whale of the hobo community: Lee Marvin’s A No. 1.

Stewart: Apparently Lee Marvin shot this right after PRIME CUT. That’s quite the role juxtaposition all right. We need to see DEATH HUNT which features Marvin AND Charles Bronson.

I loved the scene in the fog when Shack highballs it out of the train yard. I’ve never heard my echo just because it was foggy but the technique in EMPEROR really compounded Shack’s consternation of keeping A No. 1 off his train while clearing the track for the inbound locomotive. The heckles coming from the hoboes in the bushes was reminiscent of zingers from Hee Haw and I was just waiting for Shack to go out there and wack-a-mole their asses with his ball-peen. So do you think the railroad has license to kill on their tracks? Maybe that’s why the rail system in the U.S. has stagnated.

I can’t believe how intense all the “yardlets” were about everything. Was it the Depression itself that heightened the drama unfolding on the 19? I love the way a ‘bo would flash his moniker up on the water tower for all to see, essentially daring the conductor to try and stop him from hitching a ride. It’s the ultimate game of cat and mouse. Sounds fun to me.

Andy: What’s funny is that the men are scrapping over a seat in an empty box car when you get down to it. Hence the title — a reference to the fact that the “Emperor of the North Pole” would essentially rule nothing.

The men of EMPEROR were all hard to look at: The hobos with their grease-covered faces and crusty teeth … The puggish Borgnine on the verge of having his eyes launched from their sockets by his rising blood pressure. That’s contrasted by the beautiful rolling scenery of Oregon.

I read that Sam Peckinpah (STRAW DOGS, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA) was originally tapped to direct EMPEROR. I wonder how the movie would have been different under his direction? Add some rape and even more violence?

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