Movie #65: The General

Movie #: 65
Movie Title: The General
Year Released: 1927

Director: Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton
Notable Cast: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack

Short Description: When Union spies steal an engineer's beloved locomotive, he pursues it single-handedly and straight through enemy lines. (IMDB.com)


Rank on the Top 100 Lists (as of 1/7/2013)

AFI.com: #18
IMDB.com: N/A
Ranker.com: N/A
Lifed.com: #26
Empire.com: N/A
FilmCrave.com: N/A
FlickChart.com: #64



Date Watched: 8/14/2016

Grade: 2 out of 5 (Fair)

Rationale: Fairly or not I couldn't help but compare The General to a couple of the Charlie Chaplain movies I've seen as this silent film had a situational slapstick comedy vibe similar to Chaplain's films. Unlike Chaplain's films, though, The General never came across as even mildly amusing. To boot, the music was repetitive and didn't fit well with what was actually happening on the screen. I've pretty much established at this point that older films really need something special for me to like them and unfortunately there's nothing special about The General.