The General

The General, motion picture about a train engineer who becomes a Confederate hero in the American Civil War (1861-1865), based on the novel The Great Locomotive Chase by William Pittenger. Released in 1927, this award-winning critically acclaimed silent comedy was directed by Buster Keaton, who also starred as Johnnie Gray, a combat-duty reject. The military finds the man’s engineering skills more useful if he remains a civilian, but they never bother to tell him that, upsetting him and causing his sweetheart Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack) to question his manhood. When Union soldiers steal the General, Gray’s beloved train, and kidnap Lee along with it, the man takes off in hot pursuit, leading to spectacular stunts and physical comedy.

Director

• Buster Keaton

Cast

• Buster Keaton (Johnnie Gray)
• Glen Cavender (Captain Anderson)
• Jim Farley (General Thatcher)
• Frederick Vroom (Southern general)
• Marion Mack (Annabelle Lee)
• Charles Smith (Her father)
• Frank Barnes (Her brother)
• Joseph Keaton (Union general)
• Mike Donlin (Union general)
• Tom Nawn (Union general)

Awards

• Selected for Registry by the National Film Preservation Board (1989)

Trivia

• At the height of his popularity, actor/director/writer Keaton insisted on exact historical accuracy for the period setting. The film crew traveled to rural environments to find Civil War-era railway lines and had to shut down production for weeks due to the forest fires they caused themselves. This film also contains the most expensive train wreck scene in silent film history—an era of many train wrecks—and ultimately ran considerably over budget, causing the film to lose money at the box office. In addition, the war jokes apparently hit too close to home for some folks, causing both critical and popular failure for this now-revered silent classic.