IFI CLASSIC

In The General, one of Buster Keaton’s best known and most loved films, and his own favourite, he plays Johnnie, a Southern railway engineer whose love is divided between fiancée Annabelle and his locomotive. When the American Civil War begins, Johnnie rushes to join the Confederate Army, but, as an engineer, he is more valuable in his current position, a fact not explained to him. Annabelle mistakes his failure to enlist as cowardice, and refuses to speak to him again until he is in uniform. Circumstance brings them together a year later, and Annabelle is a passenger on The General when Union soldiers steal it from Johnnie, forcing him to give chase and rescue his beloved.

One of the great achievements of the silent era, it’s filled with breathtakingly dangerous stunts performed by Keaton himself, all in the service of laughter.

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