The General (1927)

Directed by Clyde Bruckman. Marion Mack, Charles Henry Smith, Richard Allen, Glen Cavender, Jim Farley, Frederick Vroom. United Artists.

Decent Films Ratings

Overall Recommendability	?A+
Artistic/ Entertainment Value	?
Moral/Spiritual Value (+4/-4)	? +0
Age Appropriateness	?Kids & Up

External Ratings

MPAA	?NR	USCCB	?A-I

Content advisory: Wartime excitement and action; a sequence involving large-scale battlefield violence.

From a National Catholic Register review

By Steven D. Greydanus

Arguably the greatest of Buster Keaton’s silent comedies, The General begins with a single, brilliantly sustained premise and works it into an engaging story that combines edge-of-your-seat excitement, stunningly conceived stunts and sight gags, spectacular set pieces, touching sentiment, and a rousing finale.

Essentially a chase film, The General tells the Civil War-era tale of stoic young Confederate railroad engineer Johnnie Gray (Keaton), whose precious train is stolen — and beloved Annabelle (Marion Mack) kidnapped — by Union spies. Commandeering another train to give chase, Gray winds up sallying deep into enemy territory, riding by the seat of his pants as he confronts obstacles and difficulties at every turn, often with only moments to act and split-second timing needed to avoid disaster.

Ironically, though often named one of the best films of the silent era as well as Keaton’s personal best film, The General is not Keaton’s most characteristic film, and was a critical and box-office flop in its own day. A typical Keaton vehicle spends the first two acts with story gags and plot complications, then goes for broke in the last act with a crescendo of amazing stunts and set pieces. Sometimes, as in Steamboat Bill, Jr., plot points are simply throw to the winds in the last act. (Compare Douglas Fairbanks’s final-reel acrobats in The Mark of Zorro, which blows away the rest of the film.)

By contrast, The General is story-driven and more disciplined in tone and style. Keaton’s acrobatics are likewise at the service of the story rather than being showcased by it. The stunts aren’t Keaton’s showiest, but the physics and geometry of Johnnie Gray’s ordeal, involving cannons, fires, fence rails, water towers, and various obstacles on the tracks from railroad ties to free-rolling train cars, are as elegant and precise as anything in Keaton’s oeuvre.

Watching Keaton in action, one can easily believe he was one of Jackie Chan’s main inspirations. Yet in his deadpan understatement Keaton was perhaps unique among physical comedians. Perhaps misleadingly nicknamed “the Great Stone Face,” Keaton was in fact a subtle actor, but didn’t go for broad emotion or histrionics. Instead, his characters keep their emotions on a short leash, making them all the more sympathetic.

Part of The General’s strength is its historical persuasiveness; the look of the film was meant to evoke Matthew Brady’s Civil War photographs, and though a comedy The General has an authentic period feel unmatched by dramatic Civil War films.

Mail: Re: The General

Thank you so much for the “Zorro” recommendation. My family loves them, and my kids want to share them with everyone. If they were a little more historically accurate I would push to show them in my kids California History classes.

Also, we are grateful for your recommendation of The General but how do you handle the ambiguity of rooting for the wrong side in this movie? Clearly, the South is protrayed as the good guys, and the North the bad side.

I’m delighted that you and your family are enjoying “Zorro.” I really hope Disney follows up with a popular DVD edition for those unable to get the limited Walt Disney Treasures edition.

Regarding The General, would you think I was joking if I said that the South were the good guys? Not on the issue of slavery, of course. But from a constitutional perspective it can certainly be argued that on secession the North was in the wrong, and the South (where they still speak of “the War of Northern Aggression”) in the right. (In one of the National Treasure movies, Nicolas Cage discusses how before the Civil War people said “The United States are,” and after the war people said “The United States is.” He says it like it’s a good thing that we have Lincoln to thank for, but for a lot of Southerners — and federalist types — it’s a sore tooth to this day, and I don’t say they’re wrong.)

The North may (or may not) have been wrong (or wrong-er) with respect to jus in bello (i.e., moral conduct during warfare) as well as jus ad bello (i.e., moral justification for going to war). But that’s a bigger discussion than I’m prepared to have here!

Be that as it may, the fundamental conflict in The General is not North vs. South, but protagonist vs. various obstacles. The movie asks us to root for its hero, to see his world from his perspective, which I think we can do whatever the merits of Northern or Southern claims in the war.

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