Our Hospitality

One of Buster Keaton’s best. It involves a family feud but the plot isn’t nearly as important as the highlight of the movie, a working recreation of Stephenson’s Rocket, which has a pretty good claim to being the first railroad locomotive engine. The train and cars are amusing enough, but the track … oh, my. Instead of moving a log, the builders just made the track hump over it. At one point someone grabs onto the end of the train and stops it dead, that’s how powerful it was. There is also a hair-raising sequence dangling over a waterfall where Buster was actually injured.