90. THE GENERAL

 

PLAINS, TRAINS AND BUSTER KEATON

By Darin Skaggs

     Physical comedy is one of the hardest things to master and no one has done better at it than Buster Keaton.  The silent movie star has made some of the greatest comedies with the best stunts in all of film.  The General is largely considered his greatest and one of the best movies ever made.

     The story goes as so, Keaton plays a train engineer who is going to join the war so his girlfriend could be proud of him.  When he gets there however he is told he is not qualified and is denied into the war.  He comes back ashamed.  He then, heads off in his train carrying several people including his girl.  While she is on the train by herself she is kidnapped.  Keaton freaks out losing the two most important things to him, his girl and his train.

      He runs after it doing everything in his power to get them back.  These are where several amazing stunts come in.  There are no special effects just two real trains, going at very real speeds chasing each other.  Keaton is constantly running to the back of the train, sometimes to the front and goes off and on the train too.  At times it is amazing to watch, most times it is nerve racking.  It is also constantly hilarious. 

The stunts he does in this movie and all of his movies are amazing to watch.  You will sit there hours after the film wondering how he did a stunt or if you could muster up the courage to do any of them yourself.  Keaton is the master at physical comedy and making us feel nervous for his characters safety.