The General

Dir: Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman

1926

*****

The General is one of cinema's greatest gifts. Based on the real life events (and the memoirs of William Pettenger), later known as The Great Locomotive Chase, where during the American Civil War (1862) a group of Union solders commandeered a steam locomotive and took it one hundred or so miles north, doing as much damage as possible to the Western and Atlantic Railroad line from Atlanta to Chattanooga along the way. They were soon chased by a succession of locomotives for eighty-seven miles and a legend was born. The story is similar but not quite the same. The General is the name of Johnie Gray's (Buster Keaton) Steam Train. When war breaks out, Johnie signs up for service in the confederate army but is rejected due to the importance, and shortage, or essential train drivers. He tries to sign up in disguise and is kicked out. His Girlfriend and would-be father in law are not impressed and mistakenly see him as a deserter and have nothing to do with him after that. After a year, his girlfriend Annabelle get in contact again and uses the General to travel to see her father who has reportedly been injured in combat. Union solders sneak into the train and steal it, kidnapping Annabelle in the process. What follows is Keaton's best film, the most expensive film of the silent era and slap-stick comedy at its most epic. Who would have thought a train chase could offer up so much rich material for the king of physical comedy. The stunts are insane. It's staggering that Keaton did all his own stunts and was allowed to by the studios. I think The General probably sees him taking the biggest risks of his career, it's even more staggering to know that most of the perfectly timed stunts were all shot in just one take. Watching poor heartbroken Johnnie sit on the train's wheel rods and be taken away without even noticing is still one of my very favourite scenes in cinema's history. The second to last scene whereby a whole bridge is felled with a train on top of it was the most extravagant (and expensive) stunt to have ever appeared in a silent movie. Looking at it today, nearly every scene is considered a classic. Unfortunately, the high cost came with a risk and when the film bombed at the box office Keaton was suddenly stripped of his independence and kept under the close reins of a studio contract for the rest of his career. History has quite sensibly declared The General for being one of the greatest films of all time. It's just a shame that Keaton's character was on the wrong side, but then this is far from a political film, it's far more universal than any politics could ever dream to be. The last scene is quite clear anyway, that love is far more important than war.