Critics reviews

“The General’s” greatness lies in the sheer awe of the spectacle and daring of it. Keaton’s really performing all of those death-defying stunts on a moving locomotive... A financial disappointment on its original release, it’s now routinely selected as one of the greatest comedies of all time.

Gorgeously filmed in the mountains of Oregon, the film frames Keaton's amazing tricks with a predominance of long traveling shots using the steam engine and tracks as the guiding elements of the film's visual and comic style... He was interested in making his comedy interact with and respond to the physics of the real world, just as he was interested in using the camera to expand beyond the confines of theatrical comedy.

With his athleticism, precision and comic timing, Keaton more or less invented the action movie [with The General] and, despite its modest running time, this has an epic ambition... It is as if Keaton is in the very forefront of movie-making possibility.

Almost certainly the funniest silent film ever made, [The General] is now widely considered [Keaton's] masterpiece... [It] boasts the most sustained passages of virtuoso slapstick genius Keaton ever shot, and an unflagging momentum that lets it get away with being a reel longer than most of his best-known pictures.

This isn't an out-and-out slapstick comedy, although there are some sublimely funny moments. It's a full-blown civil war epic, which sees Keaton venturing into D W Griffith territory (thankfully without the racist undertones that blighted The Birth of a Nation).

The General is a masterclass in comic direction, with Keaton's simple setups allowing him to find both big laughs and subtle, almost throwaway gags within the same frame. He also pulls off a series of remarkable tracking shots as he clambers across the moving train — the editing fluidly pulling us from one set-piece to the next.

‘The General’ is the perfect chase movie: it has never been bettered, and maybe never will... 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.

Keaton succeeds in making his character feel like an underdog even when he has the upper hand and his various moments of buffoonery never lead us to doubt either his sincerity or his ability. This is a silent film worth making a noise about.

Arguably, one of the greatest screen comedies ever made... [and] without doubt the most evocative and authentic depiction of the Civil War on film — D.W. Griffith's The Birth Of A Nation doesn't come close, and Victor Fleming's Gone With The Wind is a travesty by comparison.

Gorgeous is important, because The General is a peephole into history and by any definition an uncannily beautiful film... Many people are disappointed when they first see The General because they have heard that it is one of the funniest movies ever made. It isn’t... The General is something else, a historical parody set during the Civil War.

The General isn’t likely to be the favorite opus of the star’s purist fans, but it’s the one with the trappings of ambition and historical poesy... It’s the film’s symmetrical train-chase framework... that makes a lovely visual match with Buster’s paradoxical physicality: the deadpan man in perpetual motion.

Today I look at Keaton's works more often than any other silent films. They have such a graceful perfection, such a meshing of story, character and episode, that they unfold like music. Although they're filled with gags, you can rarely catch Keaton writing a scene around a gag; instead, the laughs emerge from the situation.