10 / 10
The General is one of the greatest films ever made. Buster Keaton directed it with Clyde Bruckman. Keaton stars as Johnnie Gray, a Western and Atlantic Railroad engineer in Marietta, Georgia at the start of the Civil War. The script is loosely based on the Andrews Raid of April 1862, in which Union spies stole a Confederate locomotive named the General and tried to drive it north destroying track and bridges as they went. The historical event was a Union failure. The film recasts it as a comedy from the Confederate side and turns the train chase into seventy-five minutes of escalating physical comedy.
The film was a commercial failure on release in 1927. Audiences and critics did not know what to do with a Civil War comedy in which the Confederacy was sympathetic and the entire third act was elaborate train stunts. It nearly destroyed Keaton’s independent producing career. By the 1950s critical opinion had reversed completely. By the 1970s The General was on most lists of the greatest films ever made. By now there is little serious dispute.
The Stunts
Keaton did all his own stunts. The film contains shots of Keaton sitting on the coupling rod of a moving steam locomotive, balancing on the cowcatcher, jumping between cars, and running across the top of a moving train. There were no cuts to cover the stunt work. The audience sees him doing the actual things at actual speed.
The climactic sequence destroys a real steam locomotive on a real burning bridge. The film blew up the Texas, a working engine, by driving it through a collapsing trestle bridge into a river. The single shot cost approximately forty-two thousand 1927 dollars, which was the most expensive single shot in American silent film history. The engine remained in the river for over thirty years before being salvaged for scrap during the Second World War.
For Writers
Spectacle that requires physical reality cannot be faked retroactively. Keaton’s train stunts work because they happened. The audience knows on some level that a body is doing the things on screen. The lesson for writers is harder to translate because writing is by its nature simulated, but the principle holds. The reader can tell when a writer has done the work versus when the writer has guessed. Visit the place. Talk to the people. Watch the thing happen. The material gathered in person carries weight that desk research cannot replicate.
The Comedy of Competence
Johnnie Gray is good at his job. He is an excellent engineer. He can operate the train under any conditions, repair mechanical problems while moving, and execute precise maneuvers on track that is barely holding together. The comedy is not that he is incompetent. The comedy is that he is competent at his job and being heroically resourceful in service of objectives that are constantly being undermined by events outside his control.
This is the Keaton character. The audience laughs because the man on screen is treating an impossible situation with complete professional seriousness. The seriousness is the joke. The audience knows the situation is absurd. Johnnie does not. He just keeps solving problems.
For Writers
Comedy from competent characters earnestly executing in absurd situations is more durable than comedy from incompetent characters in normal situations. Keaton’s character is good at trains. The film puts him in increasingly impossible situations involving trains. The audience laughs at the gap between his professionalism and the chaos around him. The lesson is that the funniest characters are usually the ones taking themselves and their work most seriously. Pratfalls expire quickly. Earnest competence in adversity is forever.
The Confederate Problem
Johnnie Gray is a Confederate. The film does not address what the Confederate cause was. The Civil War in The General is a setting in which a train chase can happen, not a conflict the film cares to take sides on. Critics have argued about whether the film’s casual Confederate framing is morally neutral or actively bad. The case for neutral is that the film is from 1926 and was made in a popular culture that did not yet treat Confederate sympathy as a problem. The case for bad is that the film does not earn its silence about what the protagonist is fighting for.
The honest read is that The General is a great comedy that is also a 1926 Hollywood film in its politics. Both things are true.
For Writers
Older works often have political choices that have not aged well. The General is one of these. The film does not earn its choice to make a Confederate engineer a comic hero, because the film treats the Confederacy as morally neutral terrain. The lesson is that political invisibility is itself a political choice. If you set a story against a historical conflict and decline to address the moral weight of that conflict, you have made a choice about how to handle it. Be aware of the choice you are making.
Craft Note
Buster Keaton co-directed with Clyde Bruckman. Keaton starred as Johnnie Gray. Marion Mack as Annabelle Lee. Glen Cavender as Captain Anderson. Jim Farley as General Thatcher. Loosely based on William Pittenger’s memoir of the Andrews Raid. Filmed in Oregon. Released February 1927. Approximately seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar production budget, which made it one of the most expensive comedies of the silent era. Box office failure at release. Long since recognized as a foundational film.
The Verdict
10/10. One of the greatest films ever made. Keaton’s masterpiece. The physical comedy is unmatched. The train stunts cannot be reproduced. The film deserves the reputation it eventually got and that it did not have when it was released. Watch it. Watch it on the largest screen you can find.
FAQ
Is it based on a true event?
Loosely. The Andrews Raid of April 12, 1862 is real. Union spies stole the General. They were eventually caught. Eight were hanged. The Medal of Honor was created in part to recognize the raiders, becoming the first Medal of Honor awards in American history.
Did Keaton really do all his own stunts?
Yes. Sitting on the moving coupling rod, jumping between moving cars, falling off the engine, balancing on the cowcatcher. All of it was Keaton.
Did the bridge collapse really happen?
Yes. A real bridge was built, set on fire, and collapsed under the weight of a moving locomotive that they then could not retrieve from the river.
Why did it flop at release?
Audiences expected slapstick comedy. The General is structurally a chase film with comic elements. Critics in 1927 found it pretentious. Time corrected the verdict.
Who is Buster Keaton?
One of the three greatest comedians of the silent era, along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. Known for athletic stunts, deadpan delivery, and elaborate sight gags. Career nearly destroyed by the failure of The General and by his subsequent contract with MGM, which removed his creative control.
Is it really silent?
Yes, with title cards. Modern restorations include synchronized music scores.
Should I watch this?
Yes. Foundational viewing for anyone interested in cinema.