The General (1926)

Rejected by the Confederate army as unfit and taken for a coward by his beloved (Marion Mack), a train engineer (Buster Keaton) is given an opportunity to redeem himself when Yankee spies steal his cherished locomotive. Loosely based on the non fiction book THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE by William Pettinger and directed by Keaton and Clyde Bruckman. Often ranked among the greatest of the silent comedies, this just didn't work for me. I normally adore Buster Keaton and he's a great and inventive physical comedian but not only did I not find it very funny, I found it downright offensive. In a switch from the book which is from the Union viewpoint, Keaton switches it so the Northern Union army are the wicked villains here and once again, the "glorious" South wins the day. Would Keaton have made a movie about the Revolutionary War with the British as the heroes and the patriots as the bad guys? I doubt it but somehow this was acceptable at least back then. By 1948, Hollywood's love affair with the Old South was dimming and when the film was remade as A SOUTHERN YANKEE with Red Skelton in Keaton's role, the allegiances were turned around to the original book and Skelton was on the side of the Union. Say what you will about GONE WITH THE WIND, at least it acknowledged that black people existed. There's not a black face to be found in the Old South here! With Glen Cavender and Jim Farley.