Check
This One Out! - The General
Johnnie Gray: "If you lose this war, don't blame me!"
The
General is directed by Buster Keaton (Seven
Chances, Sherlock Jr., The Navigator) and Clyde Bruckman (A Perfect Gentleman, Movie
Crazy, Everything's Rosie) and
stars Buster Keaton as Johnnie Gray, Marion Mack as Annabelle Lee, Jim Farley
as General Thatcher, Glen Cavender as Captain Anderson, Charles Henry Smith as
Annabelle's Father, and Frank Barnes as Annabelle's Brother.
Buster Keaton: actor, director, writer, stunt man, and professional badass
Desperate to join the Confederate Army to
make his fiancée, Annabelle, happy, Johnnie Gray tries to sneak into the army
with just as much physical humor to stand up to Charlie Chaplin's. However, the
Confederate Army think Johnnie is much too valuable to join the army because of
his present job: an engineer for a locomotive. Sadly, Johnnie is given the cold
shoulder by Annabelle since he isn't in uniform. As time passes, the fight
between the Confederacy and the Union grows so much that Annabelle is kidnapped
by the Union who uses Johnnie's
locomotive to escape. Johnnie must fight the Union and save Annabelle, his one
true love. With slapstick humor piled on top of slapstick humor, the
straight-faced Buster Keaton creates a classic comedy, made in 1926, that still
stands up to today's comedies.
Having to hold a giant wooden post on your body while on the front of a train is totally worth saving the love of your life...wait that wasn't the only thing he had to endure? Oh boy.
The
General is a 1926 silent film and one hell of a film in general (no pun
intended). I saw this film for the first time in a film class I took
previously, but re-watched it again recently because I laughed my ass off at
the majority of the slapstick humor involved. Not to mention, I watched it
again for the appreciation of people who went all out to make films in the
silent film era, especially of this magnitude. These were the early years of
film making thus everything from camera work, cinematography, set design/props,
and acting was still a work in progress. Buster Keaton managed to not only
star, but he directed and wrote this masterpiece. A monumental amount of props also goes
to him for doing his own stunt work. For the most part, there were no stunt men
or stunt women working in this era so the actors had to do most of the stunts
themselves. Knowing that and seeing the crazy s**t that Buster Keaton did in
this movie (almost killing him multiple times) is the major point that I
appreciate most about this film. Enough about me appreciating The General though. This is also a film
that has a lot of laughs and that still stands well to this day even when we
have films with hilarious dialogue like Airplane,
40 Year Old Virgin, Ghostbusters (1984), Hot Fuzz, Tropic Thunder, and Old
School. The list keeps going, but I just wanted to stop there. The story
is, while possibly socially unacceptable now, is definitely an entertaining
one. I enjoyed Johnnie going to all the trouble, fumbles and all, to rescue his
lover. I personally believe that Buster Keaton in The General, along with Charlie Chaplin's genius in his films, paved
the way for the films that we consider modern comedy classics today.
Oh God, Buster! No! Get your head out of there! Why would you even consider that being a good idea?!
In spite of being made in the mid 1920's
and being a silent movie (which I personally consider most of them boring, but can
still be appreciated), The General is
a film that is both hilarious and awe inspiring in terms of what people in the
earlier part of the last century could do on camera. Plus, being able to
purchase a train in that time just so it can be demolished is pretty f***ing
amazing, if you ask me. It's hard for me to even think about getting a small
student loan without the awareness of the "Is it worth it?" mentality,
but Buster Keaton and his team went for it and, to my knowledge, had to be very,
very, VERY careful on how to destroy a train during the right moments and
shots. It's crazy. Buster Keaton is crazy, in the best way possible.
And to top it all off, a little clip of that expensive and majestic scene.
The General is not rated
Click here to watch the trailer
The General is available for
digital download, Blu-ray and DVD
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