The General

This is an entry in "The Big Ones," a series covering 32 classic films for the first time on The Dancing Image. There are spoilers.

I've heard that The General was essentially remade, straight, as a wartime chase film (I think it was a Disney production, maybe The Great Locomotive Chase). Or rather that the original historical incident - a spy (Northern in reality, Southern in the film) seizes or reclaims an engine, piloting it through enemy territory - was adapted once again. This is not the only time a Keaton film was reincarnated (Seven Chances was remade with Chris O'Donnell as The Bachelor); while it would seem bizarre to remake a Chaplin film, it makes sense for Keaton to see this treatment. Why? He's certainly as inimitable as Chaplin, perhaps more so - while Chaplin's comic inventions can be copied by mimics, Keaton's stunts should not be attempted by the weak-hearted, legally sane, or uninsured.

The obvious answer (as indicated by the Disney film which circumvented The General and went back to the source) is that, well, many of the best Keaton films actually had plots - with a catchy angle. Or as I put it in my review of Seven Chances a few years ago: "Almost every picture is not only a vehicle for his unique talents, but a clever high concept idea as well." This is true - but there are other qualities that sets Keaton films apart from other comedies of the time, and makes them appear to be about more than just him: ambition, scale, and style. I promise this will be my last self-quote, but I don't want to pretend I'm not repeating myself here: in celebrating Our Hospitality, I wrote, "he could easily have fashioned romantic epics of American history, because he has the pictorial, spatial sense of a John Ford or D.W. Griffith." No film better bares out those comparisons, especially the latter, than his masterpiece, The General.

Remembering the Movies, Dec. 17 - 23

Every Friday, we look back at films released 10-100 years ago this week.
Visit Remembering the Movies to further peruse the past

We've got quite a few classics this week (camp or otherwise). As we get within a few days of the big holiday, surprisingly there is only one Christmas selection - and it's the oldest of the bunch. Again, as with last week, I'm unable to offer a capsule review but I do have some recollections surrounding the 10- and 20-year-old films, both of which I saw in theaters.

Remembering the Movies, Oct. 22 - 28

Every Friday, we look back at films released 10-100 years ago this week.

It's difficult to find one unifying theme this week - rather there are multiple little themes. With Halloween approaching, of course, there are a few gorefests; there are also several films dealing comically with sexuality - one both farcically and poignantly, one about as broadly as barn, and one with satiric surreality. There are two films with "seven" in the title - but there the connections end. So stroll through the years free of the need to furrow your brow and discover the thread. The bulk of these films have little in common but their alignment across time (at least to our decade-obsessed minds). As always, share your thoughts below; this week I'm particularly interested in your thoughts, recommendations or brush-offs as I've only seen two of the titles.

Seven Chances

Some of the greatest and most distinctive screen talents were often given rather flimsy material - since their qualities were so strong, a dance team like Astaire and Rogers or comedic geniuses like the Marx Brothers usually didn't require the highest concepts nor the most artful constructions within which to do their thing. Indeed, in vehicles like these the plot's primary purpose is not to get in the stars' way. Yet with Buster Keaton, almost every picture is not only a vehicle for his unique talents, but a clever high concept idea as well (not to mention the usually quite impressive formal qualities). Would anyone remake Top Hat without Fred and Ginger or A Night at the Opera without Groucho, Chico, and Harpo? Yet not so long ago, someone did remake Seven Chances, whose brilliant premise (a bachelor must marry by 7:00 or else lose his inheritance) promises to be a comedic gold mine. Now, I'm not saying it was wise of modern producers and screenwriters to invite comparisons between Chris O'Donnell and Buster Keaton. Nonetheless, it speaks to Buster's taste in ideas that, even without the comedic genius running in front of that army of brides-to-be, the story is worth retelling.

The Navigator

It must be difficult for Buster Keaton to play "ineffective" - given how precisely he stages and executes his comedy - but he pulls it off in the first part of The Navigator. As a spoiled dilettante (every family tree has its sap, as an opening title card tells us), Buster is as deadpan as ever but twice as feckless. After proposing to his sweetheart on a whim, he's turned down and, dejected, he exits her house to find his car waiting for him. Morose, he informs the chauffeur that he would rather walk home. Cut to a wide shot of the car outside the house doing a U-turn while Buster walks...about ten feet to his own house, which is across the street. Apparently this is quite an exertion for the young man.

Our Hospitality

Ever deadpan, Buster Keaton shakes the hand of the imposing figure who, moments earlier, was ready to kill him. Most Keaton films focus on the plucky, athletic little man's battles with his environment and in a sense, Our Hospitality is no different: Keaton's increasingly dangerous and often death-defying stunts include straddling train cars, riding rapids without a boat, falling from a cliff face into the water far below (while tied by rope to another man), and hanging from a log which is halfway over a giant waterfall. Yet at its heart, this 1923 classic pits Keaton not against the elements, but against society, or at least a bizarre offshoot which heightens society's propensity for both violence and manners to an absurd degree. Keaton plays a Southern boy come home, the last of his clan marked for death in a family feud of which he had no prior knowledge. To make matters worse, he's fallen in love with the daughter of his enemy brood. Only the hospitality of her kin, who refuse to shoot a guest in their own home, keeps him alive...as long as he doesn't walk out their front door.