AFI #18: The General (1926)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on August 7, 2020.

This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.

(G) ★★★★★

Director: Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton.

Cast: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender, Jim Farley, Frederick Vroom, Charles Henry Smith, Frank Barnes, Joe Keaton, Mike Donlin, Tom Nawn.

There must be an easier way to travel.

When the American Film Institute first drew up their list of the 100 greatest American films in 1998, Buster Keaton's The General was nowhere to be seen. In 2007, wrongs were righted, and Keaton's classic action-adventure was inserted at #18.

The snub and subsequent un-snub are emblematic of Keaton's career. The General bombed at the box office and received only middling reviews. The film's lack of immediate success, coupled with the end of the silent era, started Keaton's career decline, leading to him losing much of his independence as a film-maker and eventually becoming a (temporarily) forgotten figure of Hollywood's dawn. While his contemporary and one-time co-star Charlie Chaplin never really went out of favour, Keaton fell on hard times and was cast sparingly in the sound era. Sight & Sound's once-a-decade best movie polls featured Chaplin films on and off since their inception in 1952 - it took until 1972 for The General to rate a mention.

"Stony-faced clown Buster Keaton (was) an artist whose ill-deserved but unavoidable decline during the sound era has since been substantially countered by a great resurgence in critical admiration," the Woodsworth Book Of Movie Classics wrote in 1996, noting the "one-time vaudevillian fortunately lived long enough to appreciate this belated recognition".

While he has many great films (Sherlock Jr., Our Hospitality, The Navigator and Steamboat Bill Jr among them), The General is rightly seen as a high point, rather than the overly ambitious big-budget flop it was derided as back in 1926. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die called it a "strong contender to the title of the greatest comedy ever made". 

"One might even argue that it comes as close to flawless perfection as any feature ever made, comic or otherwise," reviewer Geoff Andrew wrote in 1001 Movies.

"Check, check... is this thing on?"

The story is simple enough - perfect for an era when the fewer intertitles the better (and Keaton reportedly like to use fewer intertitles than most). Set during the Civil War, Keaton plays Southern train engineer Johnnie Grey who is much aggrieved when Northern troops steal his train. He gives chase in another train and soon discovers the Union soldiers have also kidnapped the girl who shunned him because the Southern army wouldn't accept him as a soldier due to his important occupation. 

Comedically, The General burns slower than the likes of Sherlock Jr, or any of Chaplin's big guns like City Lights or Modern Times, largely because it sets up its stakes in a careful way. Keaton wanted The General to have heart, solid characters, a strong story, and a realistic setting, and not just be an excuse for a string of non-sequitur gags. He achieved all this - and made the film hilarious once it builds up a head of steam (pun intended). In fact, once it gets going, it's an unstoppable comedic force, rolling through some impressively huge set pieces - the climactic bridge destruction is believed to be the most expensive sequence of the silent era.

"Do it again - someone looked at the camera."

The beautiful wide shots not only capture the extent and drama of Keaton's insane stunts, but also his methodical historical accuracy. Real steam trains race along real tracks, and cannons fire real cannonballs, while perfectly costumed armies charge across the fields. The insanity of big budget silent era-moviemaking is captured unflinchingly and in gorgeous detail. The epic nature of the film even becomes a gag. 

"Leave it to Keaton to turn a 'cast of thousands' moment of an advancing army into a background gag while the oblivious Johnnie toils away chopping firewood for the engine," wrote Sean Axmaker. 

"The sheer scale of the scene gives what could have been a tossed-off gag and rudimentary piece of exposition a powerful sense of place and threat."

Keaton's wide shots demonstrate the balance of art and action he was after - The General looks gorgeous, sells its jokes perfectly, and shows off Keaton's remarkable athleticism at the same time. 

"All are presented in long shot to reveal the authentically daring stuntwork and Keaton's habitually precise camera placement is often crucial to the comic impact," agreed The Woodsworth Book Of Movie Classics. 

"It compares favourably with Chaplin's functional mise-en-scene which is concerned solely with recording the Little Tramp's pantomimic paces."

The big gags - the cannon shot, the railway sleeper throw, Grey's obliviousness to the war around him - are mixed in with some great little gags, such as a missing shoe and a cigar burn. But they're all serving the story, and continually demonstrating that this also a wonderful period piece. 

The influence of The General lives on. Aside from Keaton's influence on the stuntwork of Jackie Chan, you can see the birth of the chase film here - this is basically the 1920s answer to Mad Max: Fury Road - or in the mis-fired homage of George Lucas' The Phantom Menace, where Jar Jar's battlefield antics pay tribute to Johnnie Grey's klutz-wins-the-battle finale.

Looking at The General almost a century on, it's baffling that it could ever have been considered a flop, critically or commercially. In many ways, it's the peak of silent cinema. Beautifully shot, meticulously designed, hilarious, action-packed, neatly told - The General has it all.

And you can watch it all here for nothing. What's your excuse?