The General
Director: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack
I enjoy silent movies, but am mostly uneducated about them. I really enjoy Chaplin's comedy, but have only seen clips of his movies. Silent horror movies are great, too. This, however, was my first exposure to Buster Keaton.
This movie was about a Southern train conductor during the Civil War who goes on an adventure to save his two loves: his lady and his locomotive. The film is bookended by two long train chases, one with Keaton chasing and one with him as the chasee.
Keaton is a strange sort of comic. He remains straight faced the whole time, relying on whole body slapstick instead of facial gags. The movie wasn't really full of laugh out loud hilarity or anything. The strength of the film came from its amazingly choreographed physical action. The use of real trains made for exciting action for almost the entire film (which got a little tedious and exhausting a few times). Keaton was incredible, jumping all over the trains, performing some of the coolest stunts I've ever seen.
This film's production showed great timing and planning. If this movie would have been made today, it would have been full of uninteresting special effects. The fact that an adventure on this scale was made in 1927 makes it impressive. They actually crash a train through a bridge and into a river! My jaw literally dropped. Apparently this was the most expensive scene of the silent movie era and the train remained in the river until WWII, when it was salvaged for scrap metal!
Overall, I look forward to expanding my silent movie knowledge. Though Keaton's understated brand of comedy wasn't as immediately charming as something like Charlie Chaplin, I assume it is an acquired taste that I will enjoy even more the next time through.
Lesson learned: Ladies love a man in uniform.
PS- The version I watched was scored by the Alloy Orchestra, who I've seen do a live performance set to Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera!
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