EARLY CINEMA
The General U
(USA/1926) 79 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Clyde Bruckman|Buster Keaton
STARRING
Buster Keaton|Marion Mack
7 March 2022 MONDAY 19:30
Playhouse Main Screen
SET in the American Civil War, Buster Keaton stars as an engineer, operating his beloved locomotive, General. He's on the Confederate side and tries to enlist to fight against the Unionists, but is deemed more useful to the war effort in his role as engineer. Unfortunately, his other love, Annabelle Lee, misunderstands the situation and refuses to have anything to do with him until he is 'in uniform'.
Keaton actually built his story around a real event during the Civil War known as The Great Locomotive Chase. While the romance side of things is fictional, the rest is a pretty accurate representation of what happened.
You've almost certainly seen the genuinely iconic sequence of the train going over the wooden bridge and crashing into the river below, but you probably haven't seen the whole film. Now is your chance!
Keaton spent a lot of money on this film, and it shows. The train chase is for real, and the war scenes are too, with a cast of thousands of local extras involved. He bust the budget, and the result was not successful enough to turn a profit when the film was released in 1926. Ultimately, it was Keaton's downfall, and soon after he was forced to give up his independence as a film-maker.
Now, nearly a hundred year on, the film is hailed as one of the best ever made. It deserves that accolade, and now you have the chance to see it on the big screen in a fine 4K restoration.