I'm fairly confident that Dad sought out this title as it probably reminded him of his time riding the rails as a teenager (somewhat later than this movie depicts). I wonder if he ever saw 1933's Wild Boys of the Road?
Action director, Robert Aldrich, takes on the Great Depression with an epic battle between veteran hobo "A No. 1 (Marvin) and savage train conductor, "Shack" (Borgnine). Lee Marvin's character also picks up the tramp, "Cigaret" played by a very young Keith Carradine who tags along.
The plot is exceedingly simple: Shack really doesn't like hobos catching rides on his freight train and is willing to use very violent means to repel them. He frequently uses a large hammer or a chain to accomplish this bloody task. A No. 1 is determined to ride Shack's train to Portland, OR and a lot of money is bet on him making it. The stage is set for an action set piece and battle of wills.
The characters and performances here are all caricatures and I feel like the best way to approach this show is that it's more of a fable of even a tall tale and not so much a documentary about life during the Depression. Marvin gives Kerouac-like speeches and Borgnine plays his villain very over the top. Borgnine plays Shack as if he was born angry. It's as if Borgnine's sadistic "Fatso" character in "From Here to Eternity" went on to have a career at a railroad. If you've only seen Borgnine from his TV roles, this part will surprise you. Carradine's tagalong character doesn't always work for me but it's a necessary part.
The location and production look great. The parts of the film that weren't very effective were the interludes where we see Lee Marvin stealing poultry. These parts were surely meant to give the show some lightness but the clash of tones between the period-slapstick and the grim train scenes feel jarring.
The music score and title song are pretty bad, as if they were intended for a different kind of movie. Fortunately, the action scenes tend to be free of an underscore which helps.
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