Buster Keaton now on blu-ray and at his best in THE GENERAL

Kino International | 1926 (film); 2009 (blu-ray) | Unrated | 78 minutes | List price: $34.95 | Get it for less at Amazon

I am an enormous Buster Keaton fan. I have been for as long as I can remember. In fact, I still vividly recall the very first time I ever saw Keaton. It was the famous clip from his 1928 film STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. where an entire side of a house falls onto the unsuspecting Keaton, who barely escapes from harm due to a perfectly aligned open window frame on the top floor that was just big enough for his body to fit through as the wall came crashing to the ground. It was spectacular. In the days long before CGI, even as a child I understood that Keaton’s stunts balanced precariously between life and death for the star. I thus promptly told my parents that I wanted to be a stuntman. Fortunately though, no one in our neighborhood would drop a house on me. A few decades later, I had the opportunity to see two of Keaton’s films, COLLEGE and COPS on the big screen when the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago held a special screening complete with live accompaniment. Seeing clean prints of those classics was like rediscovering Keaton all over again, and after watching the blu-ray release of THE GENERAL, I feel exactly the same way.

THE GENERAL is Keaton’s classic from 1926 and the first of his films to make its way to blu-ray. Set during the Civil War, THE GENERAL follows the story of Johnny Gray (Keaton), a railroad engineer who wants desperately to enlist in the Confederate army, but who is consistently rejected since he is thought to be more valuable working the rails. When Gray’s trusty locomotive, The General, is stolen by Yankee spies though, he sets out on a cross country chase to recover his beloved train and prevent the North from waging an attack on Southern troops. Based on a true story, THE GENERAL is an amazing movies and one that easily features some of the best chase sequences ever captured on film.

Keaton is of course the quintessential indie film maker, an incredibly talented performer who not only starred in his films, but who also wrote and directed many of them as well. THE GENERAL is no exception, with Keaton sharing directing and writing duties with frequent collaborator Clyde Bruckman, and the result is a masterpiece of a movie, where incredible action sequences are blended seamlessly with the trademark Keaton humor and unbelievable gags. At the time it was filmed, THE GENERAL featured the most expensive shot ever staged for a silent film with the spectacular train crash of The Texas locomotive off of a bridge. Costing $42,000 in 1926, the single shot would surpass the half-million mark in today’s dollars and is a prime example of the lengths Keaton went to in ensuring that the stunts featured in his films were second to none.

The blu-ray edition of THE GENERAL is amazing, and one that should make it into everyone’s collection, silent film buff or not. Mastered in HD from a 35mm archive print struck from the original camera negative, the picture is absolutely stunning and presents Keaton’s masterpiece as it should be seen. Hopefully this release will mark the beginning of more of Keaton’s works to appear in the blu-ray medium so more people may fall in love with Keaton’s work all over again and so that a new generation of viewers can see why performers such as Jackie Chan site Keaton as one of their biggest influences.

The blu-ray release features:

• Video tour of The General: A look at the actual locomotive Keaton’s film is based on that now resides at The Southern Museum (18:00)
• The Buster Express: clips of Buster Keaton’s famous train scenes from various movies (5:47)
• Tour of filming locations: John Bengston, author of the book SILENT ECHOES, visits Oregon to find some of the original filming locations (4:00)
• Home movie footage shot in Cottage Grove, OR during the filming of THE GENERAL (1:00)
• Intro by Gloria Swanson from the 1960s television show “Silents Please” (2:13)
• Intro by Orson Welles from the PBS show “The Silent Years: Films from the collection of Paul Killiam” (12:21)
• DVD release trailer from 2008 (1:00)
• Photo Gallery
• Carl Davis score from 1987
• Robert Israel score from 1995
• Lee Irwin score from the 1970s

To order the blu-ray directly from Amazon for less, CLICK HERE.

Movie Rating:

Blu-ray bonus featues: AVERAGE