Recent viewings:

Our Hospitality and Sherlock, Jr.. I've seen The General several times, and enjoyed it each time, but I never realized until I watched these other two Buster Keaton films how much the man must have liked trains. Either that, or he just liked the physical-comedy and stunt-performing possibilities inherent in large moving objects like locomotives.

In Our Hospitality, Keaton is a nebbishy New Yorker of the early 19th century who unwittingly becomes embroiled in a rural Southern family feud when he goes to reclaim some inherited property. There are some sly gags about the backward and primitive state of civilization, as when a mother fearfully cautions her son to "watch out for the Indians out around Trenton [New Jersey]". Keaton takes advantage of the character's journey from New York to Virginia to throw in an extended sequence involving an early railroad trip. You know irony is afoot when a titlecard refers to "The Great Iron Monster", and immediately afterward you see a couple of ordinary-sized men casually pushing a diminutive, spindly, primitive little locomotive along the tracks with no apparent effort. The train trip itself is a masterpiece of escalating sight gags. Just when you think that the self-importance of the train driver (played by Keaton's father), or the decrepitude of the ancient conductor, or the jerkiness of the ride, or the crookedness of the tracks, can't get any more absurd... they do. Along the way, our hero makes the acquaintance of a lovely young miss whose hospitable invitation to dinner with her family drives the rest of the plot. Another short sequence allows Keaton to introduce another characteristic, but anachronistic prop -- his flat "porkpie" hat.

The rest of the film, as his hereditary enemies uncomfortably alternate between their familial obligation to kill him and their social obligation to respect the sanctuary of Their Hospitality -- but only so long as he is inside their house! -- is entertaining, but can't quite match that bizarrely hilarious train trip. Perhaps I'm just biased.

Keaton, as usual, remains the deadpan "Great Stone Face", the still point around which absurdity swirls. His character's emotional reactions are shown through his actions and posture, and sometimes through short fantasy-sequences interjected into the film. And yet the character doesn't come across as cold or unemotional at all. In fact, the contrast between his stoicism and the histrionic mugging of the other actors helps establish him as the viewer's reference point and alter-ego, no matter how farfetched the situations in which he finds himself, or the physical feats he performs.

In Sherlock, Jr., our hero is yet again a nebbishy young man, this time a theater projectionist who would much rather be a detective. As a result, a real life mystery and romance become comically intertwined with their somewhat more grandiose counterparts on the screen. And things just keep getting weirder....

I was startled to realize just how many bits of Sherlock Jr. have been lifted or echoed by subsequent movies. Woody Allen's on-screen persona is frequently similar to Keaton's, although more openly emotive and less prone to casual feats of physical impossibility. The "out-of-body experience" in which Keaton's consciousness gets up and walks away from his sleeping body was echoed by a famous scene in Annie Hall, and a key scene from The Purple Rose of Cairo is recognizably related to a similar scene in Sherlock, Jr. The surreal confusion of the worlds inside and outside the silver screen -- such as the sequence in which Keaton's character finds himself helplessly blundering from one inhospitable film set to another -- has been echoed time and again, perhaps most notably by Mel Brooks & Co. in Blazing Saddles.

Pay attention to the notice, "Passed by the National Board of Review", which appears very prominently at the beginning of the movie. It helps to explain the final scene of the film, in which Keaton's character appears befuddled by a certain sequence of cause-and-effect that the film censors of the time would not permit movies to portray completely.

And yes, there is a train scene! It's not as extended as in Our Hospitality, but apparently Keaton couldn't resist the urge to incorporate a train into a chase sequence. Wikipedia's entry states that in doing one of the stunts in this sequence, he broke his neck and didn't even notice it until years later. Whether that's true or not, it seems typical of his at-all-costs approach to physical comedy.

I find it entirely believable that Jackie Chan was inspired by watching Keaton. Anyone who enjoys marvelling at the stunts performed by Chan should check out Keaton as well. It would be nice to think that perhaps in some filmic afterlife, Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton will have a chance to sit down and compare their scars while trading stories.