Tony Maietta:
Hello. I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self delusion. Welcome to going Hollywood. We are back, ladies and gentlemen. And this is an event. This podcast episode is an actual, actual— I say it all the time— incredibly special episode. But this one definitely is an event here on Going Hollywood. And let's remind the people what it is, Brad, in case they didn't hear the last episode.

Brad Shreve:
This is our 100th episode.

Tony Maietta:
Man, I can't, I can't believe— like I said last week, I cannot believe that I have stood in front of this mic and looked at you through this computer for 100 times. Actually, over 100 times for pickups and things, but 100 times. That is astounding to me. Astounding.

Brad Shreve:
That's something others would dream of, Tony.

Tony Maietta:
What, 100 episodes or looking at you through a computer?

Brad Shreve:
Looking at me for 100 or more times.

Tony Maietta:
Okay, we're gonna skip over that. Well, anyway, so when we knew we were coming up to the— to our 100th episode, we thought, how— we have to commemorate it. How are we going to do this? And as I said last week, or the last time we were on, we weren't going to do a clip episode. Brad hates clip episodes. I'm not too crazy about them either. So we thought, how are we going to make this a special commemorative episode. And Brad had this incredible idea. So I'm going to let you tell the people what your idea is, Brad, and introduce this episode.

Brad Shreve:
I don't want to make too big a deal of our 100th episode because this may be somebody's first time or third time or fifth time listening. They really don't want to hear it. But our studio audience that we rarely hear from did just kind of want to do something for us.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Yay.

Tony Maietta:
Our listener. There's our listener. Our listener. Thank you. I see you.

Brad Shreve:
Wasn't that nice? What I told Tony, I thought about it and I'm like, okay, what are we going to do for our 100th episode? And I'm like, let's make it simple. What was a big movie 100 years ago in 1926? And looked and it just boom, it was right there. So obvious, it slapped us in the face. And that is 1926, Buster Keaton, The General.

Tony Maietta:
It's so interesting because, yeah, you know, there were a lot of great movies in 1926. I just want to mention that. There was Mary Pickford's Sparrows, but we already talked about a Mary Pickford movie. There's Flesh and the Devil with John Gilbert and Greta Garbo. But when Brad said The General, I went— immediately thought, oh my God, yes. Perfect, perfect, because we haven't talked about Keaton much, and it is not only Buster Keaton's— many people consider it's pretty much commonly accepted now— Buster Keaton's greatest cinematic achievement. It's one of the greatest silent films of all time. So I think that's really amazing, Brad, that The General just popped up.

Tony Maietta:
And there's another reason why it's amazing, because The General premiered on December 31st, 1926, in Japan. Did you know that?

Brad Shreve:
No, I didn't know that.

Tony Maietta:
So basically it's only one day that made this qualification. And when we talk about the release and the, you know, how this film did at the end of the podcast episode, I'll go into why that is. But I thought it was so funny because I'd heard people say The General 1927, and I was like, no, it was '26. And then when I was doing my research, I saw, oh, December 31st, 1926. So right in under the wire, we got The General. So thank you for the suggestion, Brad. I am excited to talk about The General. Had you ever seen it or did you just think, oh, I want to talk about this when you saw it?

Brad Shreve:
No. And I got to admit the funny thing, you know, when you have something wrong in your head, but it doesn't go away. When I saw it and I saw Buster Keaton, I thought, oh great, we're going to do The General. And then for whatever reason, I don't know why. 1940, Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator got in my head.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, really?

Brad Shreve:
And for some reason, his face is what I had in my head this whole time. And when I turned on the movie, I'm like, Buster Keaton? I'm like, oh my God, yes, it's the general. It's not The Great Dictator. But this whole time, that's what I had in my head that I was gonna watch, which You know, it's only because I wasn't thinking it through. It was quite obvious because as soon as it came on, I'm like, wait a minute, you idiot.

Tony Maietta:
One of the great, one of the iconic silent film comedians of all time, Keaton. We talked about Harold Lloyd in Safety Last. Keaton and Lloyd and Chaplin. So it's understandable. It's not really understandable how you can—

Brad Shreve:
Not really, no.

Tony Maietta:
But I'm gonna go ahead and give it to you.

Brad Shreve:
I shouldn't have even admitted it, but I'm, I'm willing to admit that it's because I never even thought much about it, you know, beyond that.

Tony Maietta:
Since it's our 100th episode, I'm going to give it to you. It's fine.

Brad Shreve:
Look, but, but here's the thing. I knew nothing about this film. I thought it was going to be— when it— when I saw it was The General, I thought, okay, it's going to be a 19— it's going to be a World War I film. I thought— yeah, I had no clue. I knew nothing about this film. Surprisingly, I thought I did, but I did not.

Tony Maietta:
It is a very interesting choice, and I think a great choice, uh, because of the fact that it is not only, as I said, Buster widely considered Buster Keaton's greatest achievement, but also one of the greatest achievements, period, in silent film history, certainly one of the greatest comedies, and it was not received that way on its initial release, which is one of the most interesting things about this film, the fact that when it was initially released it was kind of dismissed and then it grew in stature. It really was remarkably ahead of its time, but We will get to that. We'll get to that. But so, as you said, The General is not about— you thought maybe it was about World War I. It's not. It's about— what's it about, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
Well, the synopsis of the story is very simple. Boy loses girl. Boy loses train. Boy chases train. Boy saves girl and train. And boy becomes a hero.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. And it's set during—

Brad Shreve:
it is a world It is a Civil War comedy, which there aren't many of those that I can recall.

Tony Maietta:
No, exactly.

Brad Shreve:
A young man who works for a railroad and he's rejected from joining the army. And as typical, it's not explained to him why, because he's needed to run a train. And that was my first thought, was they're not gonna let him in the army, he needs to run a train. But they didn't tell him that's why they didn't let him in. So, you know, comedy ensues.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, what's interesting about the General is I think one of the title— one of the very first cards that pops up says that his 2 great loves are Annabelle Lee, his girlfriend, and his engine, the General. And I gotta tell you, that's debatable. There's one great love in this film for Buster Keaton. It's his engine. It is the General. We talked earlier about Harold Lloyd and we talked about how Harold Lloyd was really— is really the first romantic comedy hero, made the first romantic comedies. The women in Chaplin's films, for the most part— there's a couple that's not the case— but in Keaton's film specifically, are pretty much just props. You know, they're not really— the point of the story isn't him getting the girl back.

Tony Maietta:
The point is him getting his engine back, is getting the general back.

Brad Shreve:
Through, I don't know, 75% of this film, he didn't even know that she was on the train. He was after the train.

Tony Maietta:
He's after the train.

Brad Shreve:
She just happened to be in there.

Tony Maietta:
The great love of his life. He's after his train. And very much like Buster Keaton in real life, Buster Keaton was obsessed with locomotives. I think it was Dick Van Dyke told a story about how when he would go visit Buster at his ranch in Woodland Hills in the '50s, '60s, they would be having hot dogs and Buster had a locomotive, a miniature locomotive that went all the way around the estate. And he would put the hot dogs on the estate and take them outside and they pick them up. I mean, Buster Keaton was obsessed with gadgets, with, with all kinds of mechanical things. He was really more of an engineer. And that's what makes some of his comedies so brilliant is the engineering tricks he does.

Tony Maietta:
And in this film in particular, that make this so amazing. But I think what I want to say about The General most importantly is it is a true dark comedy. And that's one of the reasons why, on its initial reception, it was not greeted with open arms. It was really truly, truly, truly ahead of its time. This is probably one of the very first dark comedies because, as Brad said, it's a comedy about one of the most traumatic experiences, events in the history of the United States, the Civil War, the War Between the States. So that's a really, really interesting premise.

Brad Shreve:
It was, it was pretty surprising. And one of the things that really kept having a hard time with, and I don't understand this, is the original story was actually the Union soldiers.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
Keaton changed this to the South being the heroes.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
Because he said that the audiences wouldn't accept the South as the villains. And that's it. That was the most difficult part I had in the story, that I'm supposed to be cheering for the South. And I don't know where— why that is. It seems like that was common during the early filming, that they always did things from the South point of view.

Tony Maietta:
Because we know the outcome of the war. We know the South lost. So Keaton is saying, look, we already know the South loses, so let's not beat them down to the ground even more. Let's— the audience will cheer for the underdog.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
That's why he changed the character to a Southern character. Let's make the underdog the hero of this particular story. And that's why he did it. But as Brad said, this is based on a real event. event. It was inspired by something called the Great Locomotive Chase, which was a true Civil War event that was made into an 1889 memoir called The Great Locomotive Chase. It had a couple titles, but that was the main title. And the story was brought to Buster Keaton by Clyde Bruckman, who he'd worked with many times, and he ended up co-directing this with Buster Keaton.

Tony Maietta:
Although when Buster Keaton was making a film, it was Really Buster Keaton, the director. But he co-directed it with Keaton and also co-wrote it. Um, so it is based on an actual event that happened, but some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent, basically.

Brad Shreve:
I think this movie was a little long. I will get into my total thoughts of it, but my God, I sat there, I'm like, that train, the collapse of the bridge and the train, I'm like, that had to be a miniature. And I'm like, they didn't do miniatures very well back then. I don't think it was. So of course I had to look it up. Sure enough, nope.

Tony Maietta:
The most expensive scene in silent film history. I think it was like $40,000 to film that, that crash of that, of that train on, on the bridge that was built. So I think that just to put it in context, and I want to talk a little bit more about Keaton, and we'll talk about the film. First of all, this is a comedy epic. That's another reason why it didn't do so well. People were not used to this kind of film. This is a true epic. I mean, you take out the laughs in this, and this, as Brad said, there's collapsing bridges, there are train crashes, people get killed, soldiers get killed in front of your eyes, and we're supposed to be laughing about this.

Tony Maietta:
Now, we know today, a dark comedy, I mean, we're used to it now. But in '26, you know, World War I was not that— long before this. And at the same time that The General was released, there was a film called The Big Parade, which was the biggest— it was still playing after a year. It opened in 1925, and when The General opened in 1926-27, it was still playing its first run in theaters. It was that huge. And it was a big— it was an MGM film starring John Gilbert, and it was a very sentimental very dramatic take on war. So to have this film, which is a huge, tremendous success, playing at the same time as this comedy, to see people getting killed and we're supposed to laugh about it— audiences, they just couldn't take it at the time. They couldn't, they couldn't understand it because it is an epic.

Tony Maietta:
An epic comedy was something new, and it's one of the genius things about Buster Keaton that he saw that he could do this. He could actually make an— it's like if Ben-Hur was funny. It's kind of the same thing. Imagine Ben-Hur with laughs. A Tale of the Christ with laughs. Um, that's kind of what The General is.

Brad Shreve:
They weren't ready for a Hogan's Heroes type of thing back then.

Tony Maietta:
Totally. Well, are we ever ready for Hogan's Heroes?

Brad Shreve:
I mean, but you know, if you think about it, a lot of people were still around that were in that war or were definitely children at that time.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, no, absolutely.

Brad Shreve:
Was what, 60 years after the war? So yeah, they would have been very old, but it wasn't like like today where it's ancient history.

Tony Maietta:
No, there's a very famous scene in The Big Parade that takes place in Belleau Woods, and it's when the young soldiers, anxious for war, are going through— are marching through the woods, and they're getting picked off one by one by German snipers. Now, this is devastating, tragic. So you juxtapose that with the scene in The General where Buster Keaton is trying to help them load the cannons, and one by one that sniper is killing his his comrades, and we're supposed to think it's funny. It is funny now from a perspective of 100 years, the way Keaton does it, but audiences in '26 didn't, didn't see it that way. Didn't see it that way.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, it was disturbing.

Tony Maietta:
It is disturbing. It's— but that's, that's the definition of a dark comedy, and that's what The General is when you go into it. I also want to say it's so authentically shot. It's so authentic it hurts. It is so beautifully shot, this sepia tone that most of the scenes have, of course, if, unless it's nighttime and then they're tinted blue, it looks like a photo from 1861. Didn't you find that?

Brad Shreve:
It did. It was gorgeous. I was continually impressed throughout the whole thing. The one thing that disappointed me was the score is amazing. And then it dawned on me about halfway through the film, I'm like, I don't know where this score came from. It clearly would not have been the movie, the one that they used in the film. And I don't remember what version I watched. I wish I could share it because it was really well done.

Tony Maietta:
It was most likely the Carl Davis score, who also scored the Harold Lloyd movie that we saw. I probably—

Brad Shreve:
I mean, probably was. I mean, they nailed it, whoever it was. Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. It's a beautiful score. It's a beautiful score. So before we dive into The General, Brad, why don't we tell people who's in it?

Brad Shreve:
Absolutely. And I don't know, hopefully you and some of the listeners will know some of the cast members. I'm trying to start watching more silent films. I'm one of those that just never did. Of course, we have Buster Keaton as Johnny Gray, our beloved hero. We have Marion Mack, who played Annabelle Lee, his love interest. And she has a really interesting history. This movie was a big part of why she left the film industry, part of that decision-making factor.

Tony Maietta:
Ooh, a story! Brad has a story to tell.

Brad Shreve:
I looked deeply into her. Oh, good. And actually, she's quite beautiful. You know, a lot of the times when I, you know, like The '70s, an example. I look at guys that we thought were hot in the '70s. It's not that they're unattractive, but now, you know, they're very gangly compared to today. And I'm like, boy, you know, we had a different sense of what's attractive. A lot of times I watch these older movies, but no, she— I thought she was a knockout.

Tony Maietta:
She was a beautiful, beautiful woman. Beautiful woman.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Yes, we had Glenn Cavender, who is Captain Anderson. I believe he has a vaudeville background. Probably all these folks have vaudeville backgrounds, it seems like.

Tony Maietta:
Well, working with Keaton. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Jim Farley is General Thatcher, the Union general. Then we have Frederick Vroom, Southern general. And then Annabelle's father was played by Charles Henry Smith. And her brother was played by Fred Barnes.

Tony Maietta:
I think it's Frank Barnes.

Brad Shreve:
I have Frank Barnes. Did I say Fred Barnes?

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
I do have Frank Barnes. Maybe I think it should be Fred. And then I do have one question because some of the Union generals, one of them was Joe Keaton. I'm presuming this is a relative?

Tony Maietta:
That is Buster Keaton's father, Joe Keaton.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, yes.

Tony Maietta:
He frequently made appearances in Buster's films. Yeah, Joe Keaton himself plays a Union soldier. Yeah, and you're not wrong to think, I've never heard of these people. Most of them are— we're not talking about Greta Garbo and John Gilbert and Lillian Gish here. I mean, this is, this is not a big cast of— it's not a big all-star cast. Your star is Buster Keaton. And these are Buster— these are people that Buster Keaton relied on in his company to play, you know what I mean? They're basically stalwarts of the Keaton Company.

Brad Shreve:
And the majority of this cast were background actors. The ones that were most prominent were older generals. So, yeah, they weren't around for a lot of years afterwards.

Tony Maietta:
No, the real star of this film, besides Buster Keaton, is the general. I mean, those are your 2 stars, the locomotive and Buster Keaton. And of course, Marion Mack, who was not a big name in silent film, but Buster hired her because he wanted a wholesome-looking leading lady, you know, with the curls, with just beautiful black curls. And unfortunately, when she got the call to possibly do this movie, she'd bobbed her hair. Because this was the time when girls were bobbing their hair and getting the short haircuts. And so they said, don't worry about it, just wear a wig. So that's actually a wig. But she's—

Brad Shreve:
They didn't bob their hair in the 1860s.

Tony Maietta:
No, they didn't. She had the— so she had long curls. But she's— you're absolutely right. She's so beautiful. And she's, she's fun in this. She's a lot of fun in this. But there's not a lot for her to do. You know what I mean? She really is a prop that Buster can use for comic situations, usually to her detriment, which may be one of the reasons why she left silent film.

Tony Maietta:
We'll have to find out. if that's your story. It's really interesting because, to her detriment, there's a scene in The General where she gets pummeled by a waterspout. They're on The General, they're on the train, and Marion Mack didn't know this was gonna happen. This was something that Buster Keaton just, you know, he knew was gonna happen. And her reaction, I mean, that thing, that's the force of that water throws her. And she said later in life, it's a good thing they didn't have sound movies. Because apparently she let fly quite a string of cuss words at Buster, which is one of the wonderful things about silent film.

Tony Maietta:
So now that we know who's in this film, um, as Brad said, yes, this does take place during the Civil War. And basically the plot is, is that, uh, the Civil War starts and we have Johnny Gray, who is a Western and Atlantic Railroad engineer. In love with his locomotive, the General. And the Civil War begins, and Johnny tries to enlist, as Brad said, but he's rejected because he's too important as an engineer. But they don't tell him that, so he just feels dejected and worthless. And Annabelle, being the sweet, loving girlfriend she is, says he believes he refused to enlist, and she won't speak to him until he wears a uniform. So he's dejected.

Brad Shreve:
Her father saw something and thought that he refused to enlist.

Tony Maietta:
Right, right. So it's a misunderstanding. It's a misunderstanding.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
So a year later, Union spies come up with this plan to disguise themselves as Confederates and sneak into the South via Kentucky, which was neutral, which I didn't realize. So I learned something here. And steal the general intending to burn bridges and disrupt the complete, the Confederate supply lines as they traveled. So Johnny sees this, they're stealing his beloved locomotive, so he pursues them first on foot, and then he gets on a handcar, which doesn't last very long, and then he gets on the bicycle. Do you remember the bicycle he gets on?

Brad Shreve:
He did a great job flying and jumping on that bicycle and taking off.

Tony Maietta:
Oh my God, well, Buster Keaton, such an athlete, such an athlete.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
And then eventually he commandeers another locomotive called the Texas, and he's in pursuit of them. Large part of the first part of this movie is just Buster pursuing the Union soldiers who have stolen the general, and they're, they're throwing things at him. They're throwing— he's, he, he gets a, uh, they disconnect cars, they drop railroad ties onto the tracks. He is able to commandeer a big, uh, cannon, which is a great scene too. And there's all kinds— and I'm not going to tell you the specifics of it, you got to watch The General to see it, but hysterical, hysterical moments. And eventually he finds himself behind alone behind the Union lines, hides in the woods. He sneaks into a house and hides under the table, and he overhears the Union officers planning a surprise attack. And at that time, wouldn't you know, the Union soldiers bring in their contraband—his girlfriend Annabelle Lee.

Tony Maietta:
And did you not love the way that Buster Keaton found out? that Annabelle was there. The Union soldier burns a hole in the tablecloth, and so all you see is Buster Keaton's eye in the tablecloth, and you see Marion on the other side of the tablecloth.

Brad Shreve:
Just her beautiful face showing through the little hole in the—

Tony Maietta:
And this is what I love about the economy of silent film, is all Buster does is blink, but that's all we need. His eye blinks and we know he's seen her, he knows she's there, He's gonna get her. He's gonna rescue her. So he does. He goes, he rescues Annabelle. They steal away at night, get back in the General, and then it's reversed. And then they start pursuing Buster in the General. And, and that's what happens.

Tony Maietta:
He sets fire to bridges trying to cut off the Union supplies. He finally reaches the Confederate forces to warn them of the impending attack. What he does is he sets a bridge on fire. And when Brad was talking about this expensive shot, it's this shot. He sets a long bridge on fire, uh, so that when the Texas goes to cross the bridge, it collapses. It crashes through the burning bridge. This is an astounding, astounding feat. It took days to film, days to set up, and as I said before, it was the most expensive shot in silent film history.

Tony Maietta:
Cost over $40,000, but totally worth it. Don't you think?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And they were smart enough to have cameras everywhere. You can only do this once, especially at that time period. And— Exactly.

Tony Maietta:
One, one shot at this. One shot at this.

Brad Shreve:
And most of the extras were people from the town of Cottage Grove, and they came out in thousands to watch this film shot. And I don't know if you know, that train sat there for 20 years.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. In the water.

Brad Shreve:
It was a local tourist attraction. Yeah. It sat there in the water for 20 years and was only salvaged because of World War II. If it had not been for World War II, it could still be there today for all we know.

Tony Maietta:
It's amazing. It's an amazing stunt. As Brad said, not a miniature, a real locomotive that crashed. It was a stunning shot. But unfortunately, one of the unfortunate byproducts is, as the train crashed, uh, fires started. So there was a fire they had to put out. Uh, Buster Keaton helped put out the fire. And the smoke from the fire, coupled with other fires that were burning in Oregon at the time— it was a very dry season, this was a dry spell— there was too much smoke, so they actually had to abandon filming for a couple months until the first rain.

Tony Maietta:
Another reason why this thing went ballooned in budget. So they went back to LA, filmed some more shots, and then once it rained and the smoke cleared, they could go and finish the movie. So basically what happens is Buster is, of course, heralded as a hero, and he's invited to join the Confederate Army, and that's where the film ends. Buster is a member of the Confederate Army, and unfortunately they lose the war. But anyway, that doesn't happen in this movie, probably because of him. I just want to touch on Buster Keaton. It's important we talk about Buster. Um, this is the first time we've really talked about Buster Keaton, so it's important just to give a little bit.

Tony Maietta:
I'm not going to give a lot. I'm not going to do it, I swear. I swear. It's my new resolution for our next 100 episodes. I'm not going to go so deeply into the woods. But it's important because Buster Keaton is—

Brad Shreve:
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I think that's part of why you're here right now, Tony.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I know, but you know what I mean. Sometimes I think like, wow, I'm really going— nobody needs to know what he had for dinner on Tuesday, May 5th, 1922. But Buster's important because Buster, he's one of the titans of silent film comedy. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd. Big 3. Of them all, Buster was probably at the time the least financially— I know he was the least financially successful. As I said before, when we talked about Harold Lloyd, Lloyd's films were routinely making in the millions. Chaplin did 4 films, 5, 3, 4 films in the '20s.

Tony Maietta:
So when Chaplin did a movie like The Gold Rush and like The Kid and like The Circus, they were huge, but he didn't make as many. Harold Lloyd was making 2 movies a year.

Brad Shreve:
Right.

Tony Maietta:
Keaton's output was not quite as prodigious as Lloyd's, and his movies made about half a million dollars, which was still very respectable. They were still moneymakers. They just weren't huge. But Keaton has grown in stature as the years go by as the great— the intellectual clown. The intellectuals love Keaton because Keaton is very— despite his very meek demeanor, Keaton is known as the Great Stone Face because of his lack of expression. And that's what makes it so funny. But that's kind of a misnomer because it's not that he doesn't show expression. He has the most expressive eyes, I think, other than Mary Pickford in film history.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, he's a— he was a beautiful man. His eyes tell you the whole story. It's that he didn't smile. It's that he didn't react like you would expect people to react because he found that when he didn't react, audiences laughed more. They thought it was funny. So he created this character of, air quotes, the Great Stone Face, as basically somebody who didn't react to life. These things would happen to him, and he would just go on. You know, he was not a reactive person.

Tony Maietta:
And that, for some reason, because of his physical abilities, it made him even funnier than if he actually reacted to something. How did you feel about Keaton. Have you seen Keaton's films, any Keaton film before, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
I don't know. I will say I found the stone face unnerving.

Tony Maietta:
Really?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I— it— he came across to me as somebody that had a mental disability because I, I didn't want an overreaction because, as you said, that would have taken away from the film. But there was just like no reaction. I mean, it's— you saw a slump in his shoulders when she rejected him. A lot of it was through body movement. Even that was minimal. His face was totally stone-faced. It made me uncomfortable, actually.

Tony Maietta:
Really? That's interesting. Well, think about it. We've talked about this before. Think about, you know, what's the cliché of silent film acting? Overdone, over the top, you know, wiping your brow, clenching your fist. He was the total opposite, which is one of the reasons why modern audiences appreciate him so much more than His contemporary audience. He was still a big star, don't get me wrong. He was still a big, big star. But modern audiences appreciate him more because of the intellect, because of the fact that he's almost completely expressionless in his reactions to increasingly ridiculous and dangerous circumstances.

Tony Maietta:
And that's what's so brilliant about Keaton.

Brad Shreve:
I can see why it was refreshing at the time. I can see why it's considered refreshing even today. I just think there's a happy medium.

Tony Maietta:
That's interesting. Well, the thing about Keaton is, is that Keaton honed this persona from age— I don't know, when he was 3 or 4, when he first went on the stage with his family. He's from— he began performing as a child in his family's vaudeville act, The Three Keatons, his mother, his father, and he and little Buster. He got that— his name is Joe. He was born Joe, so he wasn't born Buster. Buster was his nickname. And Buster is a is another name for if somebody takes a fall, they just took a buster. That was the terminology back in the day, back in the early 1900s.

Tony Maietta:
So because he showed this incredible aptitude for being thrown around the stage and appearing not to get hurt, this was a very violent act. His father, his parents got in trouble with law enforcement very frequently because they were accused of child abuse because of the way Buster's father threw this kid around the stage. But Buster, to his dying day, said, first of all, he never got hurt. He loved it. It was not child abuse. So there's a lot to go in. I don't want to unpack all that. There's some wonderful documentaries on Buster Keaton and his background if you want to go into that.

Tony Maietta:
But my point is, is that just like Chaplin and just like Lloyd, he had such incredible control over his body that he was able to do stunts like that and not get hurt. He knew how to fall. He knew how to take a sack of flour in his face. He knew how to do these physical stunts that he does in this film, which I think would have— he never broke a— you know, I think he broke his neck, but he didn't even realize it when he broke his neck when he was filming a movie. You know, he was able to do this, and, and, you know, he got bruises and scratches. Maybe he'd sprain an ankle occasionally. But considering the things he did, it's amazing the man wasn't, wasn't hurt more than he was. So he was incredibly agile.

Tony Maietta:
He was an incredible athlete. He did these extraordinary physical and elaborate stunts, which we see in this movie. But as I said, he was not, as far as the Big 3 go, he was probably, and I, and I really hate to say this, the least successful at the time of them. But he did have his own production company, but he didn't finance it, and this is when he ran into trouble. When sound came in the late '20s, when things began to change in Hollywood, and it really became an industrial town, and these great silent film companies, which had really been just making films on the fly, so many of them for so many years, it suddenly— Hollywood suddenly became an industrialized town, and people had to stick to budgets and schedules, and that's not how these comics worked. You know, Keaton rarely had a script. The General was one of the very few full scenarios Keaton worked from, because Keaton's theory was, you devise a really great beginning, you devise a really great ending, and the middle will take care of itself. And that's how Buster Keaton worked.

Tony Maietta:
That's how so many of these comics worked, because it left open the door for inspiration, for accidents, for something to happen in the moment, which is much better than anything they would have dreamed up in an office. Well, this was okay for Lloyd, and this was okay for Chaplin because they owned their product. They had, you know, they were the master of their domains. Keaton wasn't. Keaton was tied to Joe Schenck, who was basically the head of the company that owned Buster Keaton Productions. So he sold his contract, or he sold the company to MGM, and that's when Buster got into trouble. But we won't talk about that because that's going way, way— and I said I wasn't gonna do that anymore. It's going way, way into the weeds.

Tony Maietta:
The point is, at this time, The General was Buster Keaton's biggest film by far and his biggest risk. And the fact that it didn't pay off in the beginning was one of the very first bricks to fall that created his downfall, I guess. It's a pretty stupid way of saying it, but that's what I want to say. So That's Buster Keaton. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant comedian, physical comedian. And I personally find him so charming in these films because I think it's because he is emotionless. Because first of all, he's interesting because you don't know what he's thinking. You just know that he's just going with it.

Tony Maietta:
He's so sanguine. He's just— the look on his face, the expressionlessness is beautiful. and funny. There's a wonderful scene, you know, you know the scene where, um, Annabelle dejects him at the very beginning of the, uh, of the movie because he's not in— he says, I won't talk to you again until you are in a uniform?

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Um, well, there's this— so Buster goes and he's dejected, and you can tell in his body language, you can tell, you can just tell. And he goes and he sits on the coupling rod of this, of the train. And it slowly starts to leave. And he's just sitting there expressionless, off in his own world. And he's going up and down and up and down. And then he suddenly realizes what's happening right when the scene ends. That's Buster Keaton. You know, he's like, suddenly these things are happening to him.

Tony Maietta:
And he's like, wait a minute, what the hell's going on here? And that's what I love about Buster Keaton. It's beautiful. And it's funny at the same time.

Brad Shreve:
He's an amazing physical I will grant you that. But here's where things bothered me is, so he's meeting with her, his love, after his train, and they're sitting there and that's when the war breaks out. So her brother comes in to tell her father, and they're like, we're going to enlist. And they march away. And she looks at Buster and he kind of has no reaction. And she says, aren't you going to enlist? And he realizes that, you know, She expects him to be a hero and he gets up, but he— I couldn't figure out at that time, I'm like, is he cowardly? He must be cowardly because he's not reacting and he's doing it just because he wants to please her. And then the next thing you know, not only is he enlisting, but he's trying to get— he goes through some great stunts to be the first.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
You only realize then at that point that he wants to enlist because he keeps trying. But again, There's no reaction on his face. So it didn't work for me. Didn't work.

Tony Maietta:
Well, he's— and I don't mean this pejoratively, please— he's like the thinking man's comic. You know, he does— he's not going to tell you—

Brad Shreve:
Well, thank you.

Tony Maietta:
I don't mean that pejoratively. And I'm not calling myself a thinking man either. Because actually, you know, we've talked about it before. My favorite's actually Harold Lloyd. I love Lloyd. I love Keaton too. But my personal favorite of the Prests is Lloyd. However, The thing about Keaton is, is that because he doesn't tell you how he's reacting, he's not telegraphing it to you, you have to decide for yourself.

Tony Maietta:
So he brings you in. But he is passionate. I mean, think how he is on that train when he's trying to get back his great love. He's trying to get the general back.

Brad Shreve:
Right.

Tony Maietta:
You know, the passion that he has to try to get his great love, his locomotive back, it's galvanizing. And he— He shows the passion, but he just— it's really hard to describe Buster Keaton to people unless you're watching Buster Keaton, because it's a— he's a, he's a flavor all his own, you know. He's a subtle flavor all his own. If you get it, you get it. Um, I think you need to watch more Buster Keaton to really, really appreciate the genius of this man, not just the fact that he was an incredible physical athlete and did— he did all, almost all of his stunts himself.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, that was obvious.

Tony Maietta:
He had to. He couldn't be doubled because nobody could— nobody felt like Buster Keaton. Buster Keaton would, would like fall and he'd spin upside down and spin on his head. You know, he would do things that another person couldn't replicate. So he had to do all his own stunts. And the stunts in this film are incredible. When he gets out on the cow— what's that called? A cow pusher?

Brad Shreve:
The cowcatcher. That's what I was sitting there watching.

Tony Maietta:
I'm like, he gets on the cowcatcher and he starts picking, you know, he has the railroad tie and he drops it to get the other one out of the way. I mean, that's some dangerous stuff, you know, throwing that cowcatcher. He could have gotten injured very badly on the coupling rod of that train. You know, the wheels could have gone— he could have been killed instantly, he was told. But he didn't. He was so adept at these things, and he makes them look so easy because of the fact, first of all, he'd been doing them his entire life, since he was a kid being thrown around by his father, and by the incredible control he had over his body.

Brad Shreve:
The cowcatcher scene, I'm sitting there, I'm like, so impressed as he You know, he's, he's riding it with the one in his arms. I was impressed. And then he tosses that aside and bends down to pick up the next one, and I'm like, whoa.

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
Whoa.

Tony Maietta:
You know, the very—

Brad Shreve:
And you just see him climbing back and forth from the, from the back, like the, the cart that had the cannon on it, back to the front. You could tell that was him.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
There may have been times where they pulled away and somebody— it may have been somebody else.

Tony Maietta:
No, it was him.

Brad Shreve:
Most of the time they were close enough you could tell.

Tony Maietta:
It was really him. Only like later, later in his career when things got a little too difficult, would he allow a stunt person when it was out, when he was at MGM, actually, because MGM wasn't gonna let him do this stuff. But, you know, have you ever, there's a very famous, I know you've seen the scene from Steamboat Bill Jr., where he's in a town and there's a hurricane and he's standing in front of a house and the front, the facade of the house falls.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Begins to fall, but he's standing in a window where a window would be. And he basically, the facade of the house falls on him, but because he's standing where a window is, He's fine. Well, can you imagine how incredibly dangerous this stunt was? He said—

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
He had leeway of about 2 inches on each side. So if he had moved off his mark more than an inch or 2, he would've been driven into the ground like a pig. I mean, and he did that. That was another one and done. You can only do that one once. It's incredible the risks this man took his art. And the fact that he's so damn good at it. It's just, it's astounding to me to watch a Buster Keaton film and see the— Chaplin's incredible with his body too.

Tony Maietta:
But the risks that Keaton takes is what's really thrilling about his films, I think.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Can I talk about Marion Mack now?

Tony Maietta:
Oh, yes, you have a story about Marion Mack, the other love of his life.

Brad Shreve:
I can talk about her career because it was very brief. She wrote a letter to Hollywood saying basically, I want to be an actress, and was told, come out when— if you're ever in Hollywood. I don't know what studio it was. Whenever you're ever in Hollywood, come stop by. So she and her father and her brother took off to Hollywood, and she showed up and she got a job as a swimsuit girl, whatever. Her father wasn't very happy about it, but she got a job. Well, somehow, 3 years before this movie, she actually made a movie called Mary of the Movies. And it was somewhat autobiographical, and she really had no experience before this, but this is where she met her husband, producer Louis Lewin.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
But it was a very short time, just 1 or 2 years after this film, and this film, as you know, took 6 months, and we saw the physical comedy that she went through. she decided that movies were just too hard physically, and it's not what she was interested in. And so she left the film industry, and her husband continued working in film, and she wrote screenplays for shorts.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
And then right about the time that shorts were no longer popular, her husband became ill, and she became a real estate agent in Pasadena. And she lived to the ripe old age of 87. So 1989 was the year that this was inducted, I think, into the Hall of Fame, this film.

Tony Maietta:
'89? The registry, the registry of—

Brad Shreve:
The registry. Yes, yes, you're right. Before she died, people found her and reached out to her, and she did a presentation for the film. And so she got to see this film that was a big flop and actually made her decide to leave. And as you know, it kind of had a negative influence on Buster Keaton's career. Yeah. She was able to see it turn around, become considered one of the greatest movies of all time. So I was happy to see that happen.

Brad Shreve:
She died in '89.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, she's an interesting actress. She's not, as I said before, she's not really— she's not Garbo. She's not Joan Crawford. She's interesting. She's serviceable in this. But she's what she needs to be. Because as I said, she's not the love of his life. The train is.

Tony Maietta:
And she's a prop for him.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And I dove into her because I felt like she had a unique look about her compared to so many of the others. She is.

Tony Maietta:
She It's one of the reasons why he hired her. So, yes, so The General was filmed in Oregon, in Cottage Grove, Oregon, because one of the producers said it would look more like the South than the South. And they were up there for a very long time filming this. And the initial budget was about $400,000, which was a big budget. And also considering Keaton's films rarely made more than half a million dollars, this was a real, real risk. But the initial sneak previews were very encouraging. There was a sneak preview in Glendale with all of Hollywood present, and it was a huge success. There were standing ovations.

Tony Maietta:
They predicted it would make $1 million or more. But unfortunately, what happened was The General was set to premiere in New York City at the Capitol. theater on Broadway on January 1st, 1927. But the problem was, was the Capitol was a Loew's theater, and Loew's owned MGM, so MGM films got precedence. So The General was pushed back and pushed back and pushed back until it finally had its U.S. premiere in Carnegie, Oklahoma. So you go from this big premiere—

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, this big premiere in New York City on Broadway. It's going to be a huge, tremendous success. And it ends up premiering in Carnegie, Oklahoma. And it played all these little regional theaters before it even got to New York weeks later. And what happened was this initial great enthusiasm for it wasn't by these cosmopolitan critics and by the people who work in the industry, the people living in Carnegie, Oklahoma, and Peoria, Illinois— and I always pick on Peoria— or Butte, Montana, they didn't quite have the same enthusiasm for it. Again, they didn't quite understand it. As I said, The Great— The Big Parade was still playing and it was a huge hit, and that's how people looked at war movies. They didn't understand why they were laughing at soldiers being killed.

Tony Maietta:
It just did not sit well with them. So by the time the film finally premiered in New York on February 5th, word of mouth began leaking out that this was not a good movie. It was— I don't want to say it was not a good movie. This was not the great hit they thought it was going to be. And the initial critical reaction kind of went along that line. It was largely negatives. They said the film was too long. It wasn't funny enough.

Tony Maietta:
They wanted gags, gags, gags, and Keaton was giving them something to think about. with these gags. So Variety said the film was far from funny and a flop. And they just found the comedy lacking in it. But before I go into what happened and how critical reaction changed toward the general, Brad, do you want to tell the people, give the people the stats on this film, how it really honest to God performed when it was released in 1926, '27?

Brad Shreve:
Now, you said it was budgeted for $400,000 or so. And of course, we know it went way over that.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
This movie, unbelievably, in the 1920s cost $750,000. There are movies today, they're not very good, that are made for less than that.

Tony Maietta:
Movies made for $750,000?

Brad Shreve:
I don't know. You know, I've seen some pretty cheesy, some pretty cheesy horror films.

Tony Maietta:
Well, $750,000 in 1926. Also, think about that for a minute. Astonishing amount. Yeah. Astonishing amount.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Yes. So it made for $750,000. The US gross was less than half a million. It was $474,000. Worldwide, it made finally about a million. So it didn't do very well. And as we know, Buster Keaton lost a lot of clout in Hollywood as a result of this.

Brad Shreve:
That's unfortunate.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
As far as how it did, you touched on the critical reaction that most of it was pretty poor. They were impressed by the The actual production of it. It's hard to criticize that. They do feel like the— and I'm gonna share some of this— they felt it was repetitive and overlong. Because I did feel like, okay, we're watching the same joke over and over again, especially when it turned around and we were being chased backwards, but really was the same shtick. And it's not to say that I didn't enjoy this one, but these are my critiques. Their critiques are my critiques.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
That it did get too long. But I disagree that, like you said, that the, what we see as a comedy drama or Black comedy, that was not understood or well received today. So the things that we like about it today are what critics hated about it at the time.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Audiences, it's not that nobody showed up, but it wasn't a hit in any way. It didn't bring in a lot of money and was pretty forgettable in most people's eyes at that time period. It's really interesting how it's turned around, and rightfully so. I don't know if I'd rank it up there with some of the greatest movies of all time, but I haven't seen a lot of the silent films. I need to watch more.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, it really was— the box office failure of The General really did have a profound effect on Keaton. It was like the first act in the destruction of this career. It caused a reassessment of his working methods, and he actually— they actually got a production supervisor who was hired to oversee his remaining independent films. And then he eventually, as I said, he was moved to MGM, which was not a good thing. MGM destroyed more creative people in the early years than they helped move forward. Both Chaplin and Harold Lloyd urged him not to do this. Don't do this. You'll lose control of your art.

Tony Maietta:
And that's exactly what happened. And he started out well at MGM, and it just went down lower and lower and lower. He started drinking more and more and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It did not end well. However, he did have his resurgence in the late '50s, early '60s. He did a lot of television. People began to appreciate— mostly, it mostly began in Europe. Because, as we just said, this film was so far ahead of its time, and so much of what Buster Keaton did was so far ahead of its time, that eventually— culture caught up with him.

Tony Maietta:
And some of these films he made, which were hits in the silent film era, but not tremendous— these tremendous icons we think of, like The Navigator, like Steamboat Bill Jr., like this film, like The General, became bigger and bigger and bigger until finally it became acknowledged as one of the greatest silent film comedies of all time. Orson Welles, who was no slouch when it came to movies, called it the greatest comedy ever made. The greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made. In '89, it was selected for the first class of the National Film Registry, as Brad said, along with Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Sunset Boulevard, Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain. So there, I mean, that's right there. It's been ranked highly multiple times in Sight and Sound as one of the greatest films of all time.

Brad Shreve:
That turnaround is what really amazes me because, you know, you just listed off some of them. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score, which we know is an aggregate of multiple sites, is 92%. The critics score is the exact same thing, 92%. You know, our good friends at AFI have shown a lot of love to this film.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
It's just continuously, continuously received so much praise. And that is so funny considering how it was received at the time and what it did to his career in the long run. It wasn't like an immediate destruction of his career. It was kind of a domino effect at that point.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, like I said, it's kind of an acquired taste, if you will. I'll let you in on a little secret here. It's actually not my favorite Buster Keaton film. I prefer The Navigator. I think The Navigator is a brilliant, brilliant funny movie. I prefer Steamboat Bill Jr. However, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate The General and love The General and see what the ambition behind this film is astounding. He's making a comedic epic.

Tony Maietta:
I guarantee you, that was one of the very first comedic epics ever made, and probably one of the last for a very, very long time. The film was remade, because, you know, they always have to remake things, in 1948 with Red Skelton, and it was called A Southern Yankee. And Skelton remade a few of Keaton's films. They was— he was at MGM, because at this time Keaton was back at MGM, but not as a top-of-the-line star, as an advisor. He started out making $100 a week. This is a man who was a titan of silent cinema. And he was— he ended up making $100 a week. But he grew from there.

Tony Maietta:
And as I said, there was a reappraisal before he died. His third wife, Eleanor, who was a true jewel, took care of him, got him back on his feet again. And he was he died, he could feel the appreciation and feel the love from audiences for films such as The General and the rest of his canon of work. So Brad, that was The General. That was really interesting. Is there something you want to tell the people about anything else about the film or the podcast or anything else?

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Thank you for being with us. Once again, we are ecstatic that we have done 100 episodes. And I know many of you have listened to All of them, because you keep sending us messages to tell us that, and we appreciate it. Uh, we actually got a comment from a listener that, uh, we will do on the next episode because it has been neglected, and we're overdue responding to the individual. They sent us a text message. Yes, that is the key, that we would like to hear from you, and it's really easy to do. At the top of the show notes, it says text or leave a voicemail.

Brad Shreve:
Click that and you get the option. You can text us, or you can leave a voicemail. We love your voicemails because we can play them on upcoming episodes. And the other ways you can reach us, if you have something longer to say than a text message will do, you can send us an email at goinghollywoodpod@gmail.com. And most importantly— well, not most importantly, equally important— rate and review this podcast. You can do it Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. to your podcast. Thank you.

Tony Maietta:
Thank you for that, Brad. Yes, absolutely, everybody. We so appreciate it. The first 100 have been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the next 100 if I can make it. Well, Brad, that was The General. What a fun, fun, uh, choice for our 100th episode celebration. Thank you for suggesting it.

Tony Maietta:
I think it's really, really— it's a very interesting choice. I don't think a lot of people would have thought of, oh, let's talk about The General to celebrate our 100th. birth— our 100th episode, but I think it's a great choice. Thank you.

Brad Shreve:
I'm glad I did.

Tony Maietta:
I'm glad you did too. Well then, I know I only have one more thing left to say, but I don't want to say it. So let's not say goodbye. Let's just say, here's to the next 100.

Brad Shreve:
No let's say goodbye.

Tony Maietta:
Goodbye, everybody.