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The General

  • Film
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
The General
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Time Out says

5 out of 5 stars

Made barely three decades after the invention of film itself, Buster Keaton’s timeless 1926 silent ‘The General’ is the perfect chase movie: it has never been bettered, and maybe never will. Keaton plays a train driver during the American civil war who loses both his beloved steam engine The General and his estranged fiancée (Marion Mack) to a troupe of Northern spies. Overcoming impediments both intentional and inadvertent – armies, cannons, bears, rickety bridges – without ever losing his implacable stone-faced cool, Keaton sets off in pursuit. The set-pieces are breathtaking, the stunts barely believable (yes, that’s a real train falling from a real bridge), and the blend of broad slapstick, grandiose period drama and heartfelt character comedy is impeccably judged. See it and gasp.

Written by Tom Huddleston

Release Details

  • Rated:U
  • Release date:Friday 24 January 2014
  • Duration:89 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman
  • Screenwriter:Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman, Al Boasberg, Charles Smith
  • Cast:
    • Buster Keaton
    • Marian Mack
    • Glen Cavender
    • Jim Farley
    • Frederick Vroom
    • Joe Keaton
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