Commuter's Special

By J.C.

THE EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE

Directed by ROBERT ALDRICH Screenplay by CHRISTOPHER KNOPF

"You tighten your belt, turn up your collar," the veteran hobo tells the kid, "and you can be emperor of the North Pole." The kid, called Cigaret (Keith Carradine), is a blowhard spoiling to be top bum in the territory. He keeps pestering "A No.1" (Lee Marvin) for some tutoring on the fine points of jumping trains and dodging conductors.A No. 1 tosses a few nuggets of road wisdom to his would-be protege, but saves his energies and talents for his epic battle with the sadistic conductor Shack (Ernest Borgnine), toughest train man on the tracks.

Christopher Knopfs screenplay gets a lot of the details right: of Depression America and a closed, grim society of busted-down mavericks, with its own codes, its own language. The trouble is that the substance of his story is worn and without surprise, another brawny contest of strength and will between two scruffy cliches. Aldrich handles the violence of the story with the gusto of a born brawler piling into another fray. His best films (Kiss Me Deadly, Attack) have always shared a quality of almost surrealistic brutality. Since much of The Emperor of the North Pole has to do with great quantities of physical pain being meted out or endured, Aldrich makes the action grimly, jarringly exciting.

There are, however, somewhat discomforting jabs at allegory and significance. Marvin is the soiled knight striving after honor, Borgnine the dark primitive force he must conquer. Aldrich's idea of making his stereotypes into mythic archetypes is to pump them up with hot air. When Borgnine and Marvin finally lock in combat they seem less likely to wreak havoc than to simply deflate each other. sbJ.C.

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