Our Hospitality (1923)

In the 1830s, a young man (Buster Keaton) travels to Kentucky to claim an inherited estate. While traveling he becomes smitten with a young beauty (Natalie Talmadge, Keaton's wife), unaware that she is the daughter of the family that has had a blood feud with his family for years though nobody can remember why. Directed by Keaton along with John Blystone, this was Keaton's first feature length narrative film. Of the famed comedians of the silent era (Chaplin, Harold Lloyd), Keaton had the most astute visual sense and it's displayed here as the camera lovingly lingers on the Kentucky (actually California and Oregon) landscapes as well as the forerunner of the locomotive, a steam engine that pulls what looks like stagecoaches along a primitively laid track. Quite unusual, Keaton begins his film quite seriously with two tragic deaths before subtly transitioning to comedy. The film's set piece is probably the impressive waterfall sequence (which would probably be done with CGI today) which seems strongly influenced by Griffith's WAY DOWN EAST. There's a comedic bit involving domestic violence that doesn't play well today. With Joe Roberts as Talmadge's father who suffered a stroke during filming and died shortly after.