Our Hospitality

One of Buster Keaton's silent features. Two families have been feuding for years. Willie was taken to New York as a baby and grew up knowing nothing about it. Years later he learns he has inherited the family house in the South and takes a train down. He meets a girl on the way. She invites him home. The trouble is that the house belongs to the other family in the feud, and when he steps inside the men recognise him. That is the idea. Southern hospitality has rules: nobody kills a guest inside his own house. Willie works this out and decides not to leave. A whole section consists of the excuses he invents for staying indoors. The train journey in the first part is a treasure of its own: the rails bend, the carriages sway, and the locomotive was rebuilt from a real design of the period. The waterfall rescue at the end is among the most dangerous work of his career; Keaton came close to drowning during the shoot. Buster Keaton directed and stars. Among the best of its kind for anyone who likes silent comedy and physical humour. For a viewer expecting fast comedy, the film spends its first half on setup.