The General is a 1927 silent comedy released by United Artists based upon the Great Locomotive Chase from 1862. Buster Keaton starred in the film and co-directed it with Clyde Bruckman. It was adapted by Al Boasberg, Bruckman, Keaton, Charles Henry Smith (uncredited) and Paul Girard Smith (uncredited) from the memoir The Great Locomotive Chase by William Pittenger. The film was a box-office disaster at its original release, but is now considered by critics as one of the greatest films ever made.
Plot
Buster Keaton plays Johnnie Gray, a train engineer. He returns to his hometown in Confederate Georgia to visit his fiancée Annabelle Lee when the American Civil War breaks out. Her brother and father rush to sign up and she tells Johnny she could only love him if he joins. As many men in his town rush to sign up for the army, he hurries to be first in line. Getting to the head of the queue, he is turned down by the army because he is too valuable as an engineer. While leaving, he comes across Annabelle's father and brother, who beckon to him to join the line, but he sadly dismisses them and walks on. This is misinterpreted by the father as an act of running away so he tells Annabelle that her fiancé is a coward who would not even get in line to sign up. Annabelle coldly informs Johnnie that he had better get in uniform if he ever wants to speak to her again then walks away.
A year passes, and Annabelle receives word that her father was wounded. She travels northward to find him, but the train she is travelling on, coincidentally driven by Johnnie on his locomotive The General (hence the name of the film), is hijacked by Union spies, and she is kidnapped. Gray gives chase alone on foot and by penny farthing bicycle before he arrives at a station in Chattanooga where several soldiers are stationed. Commandeering another train Gray begins a locomotive chase, leaving the soldiers on the wagons behind by removing the connecting pin to make the train faster. The kidnappers, believing there to be hundreds of soldiers on board the pursuing locomotive, attempt to thwart the chase. Gray attaches a cannon to his engine and attempts to blow their fleeing train off the rails. At the crucial moment, the cannon dislodges and points at Gray's engine. The engine gets out of the way just in time as the cannon fires and misses both trains. The Union spies then disconnect the carriage in order to slow Gray down. They then place two planks of wood on the tracks in order the send Grays engine flying off the rails. In one of the film's most memorable stunts, Gray manages to use one of the planks to remove the other from the tracks. The spies disconnect the second carriage and set it on fire and leave it in a tunnel waiting for Gray. At this time the Army of Tennessee is ordered to retreat from enemy territory, and simultaneously the North is given orders to advance (Gray does not see any of this, however, as he is busy chopping wood for the engine's fire. As a result he is completely unaware that he is now all alone in enemy territory. Soon after the spies finally realise that Gray is the only man on the pursuing engine. Gray having been discovered, abandons his train and continues the rest of the chase on foot.
Night falls and Gray arrives at the North's base camp. He sneaks in and hides under a table as the enemy discuss their plan to have their army execute an invasion of the North from Rock River Bridge. Annabelle is then brought in and taken to a room to be held until they can decide what to do to her. The meeting ends and Johnnie knocks out one of the guards and steals his uniform. He rescues Annabelle and they escape into the woods in the pouring rain. Annabelle confesses her love for Gray as she tells him how it was so brave of him to risk his life just to save her, not realizing he had no idea she was on the train when it was stolen.
The next day Gray and Annabelle arrive at the enemy station where they steal The General back and in the process knock out and unwittingly capture a Northern lieutenant. Gray and Annabelle head back South to warn of the oncoming attack. Gray now finds himself being pursued by the enemy. Gray and Annabelle empty the contents of the train's carriage onto the tracks to slow them down.
Gray attempts to signal for help on the still-moving train but is shot at by Southern soldiers as he is still wearing enemy uniform, he then changes into a Southern lieutenant uniform left on board earlier. Gray buys himself some time by breaking a railroad switch to send the enemy train the wrong way. In a final attempt to fend off his pursuers once and for all, Gray sets fire to Rock River bridge.
Gray and Annabelle arrive back home where Annabelle is reunited with her father, who is recovering at home. Johnnie then informs the general commanding the Confederate forces of the impending attack and joins the South in battle. The Northern spies finally find their way back on track and attempt to cross the burning bridge causing it to collapse in what would later come to be known as the most expensive stunt of the silent era. The Army of Tennessee assisted by Johnnie defeat the North with relative ease.
Later that day Johnnie Gray is tending to his restored engine as the Northern lieutenant he knocked out earlier wakes up. Gray escorts the lieutenant at gunpoint to the Southern lieutenant where he surrenders and is taken away. The general notices Gray is wearing a soldiers uniform and is ordered to take it off, Gray expects he will be ordered back to his old job as an engineer. However, as a reward for his bravery, Gray is given an official uniform and made into a lieutenant. Gray returns to his locomotive where he finally shares a kiss with his love.
Cast
- Buster Keaton — Johnnie Gray
- Marion Mack— Annabelle Lee
- Glen Cavender — Captain Anderson
- Jim Farley — General Thatcher
- Frederick Vroom — A Confederate General
- Charles Henry Smith — Annabelle's Father (as Charles Smith)
- Frank Barnes — Annabelle's Brother
- Joe Keaton — Union General
- Mike Donlin — Union General
- Tom Nawn — Union General
Production
Keaton performs lots of dangerous physical stunts on and around the moving train, which include jumping from the engine to a tender to a boxcar, sitting on the cow-catcher of the slow moving train while holding a railroad tie, and running along the roof.
One of the most dangerous stunts occurred when Buster sat on one of the side rods, which connect the drivers of the locomotive. In the film the train starts gently and gradually picks up speed as it enters a shed. The visual effect of the forlorn Buster as the motion of the side rod moves him gently up and down is very poignant. But in real life, it is nearly impossible for any engineer to start any train moving this precisely. If he had not accelerated by exactly the correct amount, the rods would have moved so fast as to send Buster flying, certainly injuring or killing him. The story goes that it took considerable persuasion on his part to convince the engineer to go through with it.
The climax of the film includes a spectacular moment where a bridge (sabotaged by Johnnie) collapses as a railroad train crosses it (compare The Bridge on the River Kwai). Keaton filmed the bridge collapse in the conifer forest around the town of Cottage Grove, Oregon, using 500 extras from the Oregon National Guard. They all dressed up in Union uniforms and were filmed going left-to-right before changing into Confederate uniforms and were filmed going right-to-left. He did not tell the actor portraying the Northern commanding officer what to expect: his look of total shock was genuine.
The production company left the wreckage in the river bed after the scene was filmed. The wrecked locomotive became a minor tourist attraction for nearly twenty years. The metal of the train was salvaged for scrap during World War II.
Reception
The General was a box-office disaster and received poor reviews upon its release. Variety reported that the theaters in which it played that, "after four weeks of record business with 'Flesh and the Devil', looks as though it were virtually going to starve to death this week." It goes on to say that The General is "far from funny" and that "it is a flop."[1] The New York Times stated that in this picture Buster Keaton "is more the acrobat than the clown" and that he "looks like a clergyman and acts like a vaudeville tumbler."[2] The Los Angeles Times reports that the picture is "neither straight comedy nor is it altogether thrilling drama" and goes on to state that the picture "drags terribly with a long and tiresome chase of one engine by another." [3] It was one of Keaton's worst pictures at the box office. This disappointed him as he considered it to be the best of all his movies. Audiences and critics would later agree with him, and it is now considered a major classic of the silent era.
In 1989, The General was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It made it into the registry in the first year it was enacted, going in with such films as The Best Years of Our Lives, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, and Sunset Blvd.
In a 2002 poll of critics and filmmakers on the best films ever made, critic Roger Ebert listed it on his top 10.[4] It is also on his list of Great Movies.[5]
US film distributors Kino International have announced plans to release the film on Blu-ray Disc in November 2009.[6] This will mark the first American release of a silent feature film for the High Definition video medium.
American Film Institute recognition
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
- Huntley, John (1969). Railways In The Cinema. Ian Allan. pp. 33–42. SBN 7110 0115 4.
External links
