Buster Keaton plays an engineer at the time of the American Civil War who has two loves: his engine and his girlfriend (Marian Mack). When both are stolen by Northern spies, he chases them on hand-cart and on foot, eventually rescuing the girl behind enemy lines before putting the engine and the plot into reverse and heading for home. It is quintessential Keaton, built around a challenge and a chase, and the apotheosis of his screen persona as a modest man who thinks slow but acts fast and solves problems with wit and ingenuity rather than overt heroics. Every emotion comes to life in that unique face, a map of concentration, stoicism and nuance that made him the subtlest of screen actors; and his astonishing acrobatic agility is matched by his total technical mastery, with one shot of the Northern train falling through a bridge being one of the most spectacular of the silent era.<