9/10
Buster tales on the "chivalric" south
17 April 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Not quite up there with THE GENERAL, THE NAVIGATOR, SHERLOCK JR. and STEAMBOAT BILL, JR., OUR HOSPITALITY gives us encouraging signs of Keaton as film creator and thinker. He had done historical films before it - the film just before this was the amusing THE THREE AGES, which was somewhat influenced by the structure of INTOLERANCE (not quite: the stories are parallel here like in INTOLERANCE, but Griffith blended the conclusions to show the results of intolerance are always evil, whereas Keaton has each story end separately). Griffith is an influence here to, in the matter of trying to impose historical correctness of detail. The result is Keaton spoofing it: showing Broadway and 42nd Street in 1830 based on an actual lithograph of the time, which shows that modern thoroughfare as barely out of the cow pasture age - even the cop stops a "traffic jam" by halting foppish Willie McKay on his early bone-shaker bicycle while a wagon has the right of way!*

(*Keaton continues this later on in a throw away line, to spoof the cautions of an earlier age. Before he boards the train to take him south, he is warned by his mother, "Be careful of those Indians in Delaware!")

All great comedy skirts the edge of tragedy. STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. is resolved when a tornado hits the southern town it is set in, wrecks most of it, and sinks Mr. King's modern steamboat. The reason the ship in THE NAVIGATOR is set adrift is due to foreign agents of one of two countries currently at war. Keaton is fully aware of how close tragedy and comedy touch each other. In Our HOSPITALITY he has a ten minute prologue which could have been in a drama: Willie McKay's dad (when Willie was an infant in the south) has been insulted by the younger brother of Joseph Canfield (Joe Roberts) a neighbor. Apparently the insult was a mutual one. Despite the entreaties of his wife Mr. McKay goes out of his home armed. Canfield, likewise, tries to prevent his brother, but fails. We watch as both men basically spot each other in the dark, approach with care and fire - mortally wounding each other. Canfield dies on the spot, but Mr. McKay stumbles back to his home and dies. Joseph Canfield looks at the dead body of his brother and realizes that this begins the real matter of a blood feud. He regrets it, but hardens himself to prepare for a massacre. Mrs. McKay quickly leaves the house with baby Willie, fleeing town and heading North.

It sets the stage (though a logic question is dropped - given the threat to McKays in the southern town, why is Willie allowed to go back to claim his inheritance?) Willie heads south on the newly built railroad, which has wooden tracks that keep needing repairs (at one point the train accidentally goes off the rails and continues puffing along like a set of coaches pulled by a steam powered automobile). The train contains more than Willie - he has met a charming southern girl (Nathalie Talmadge - in actual life Buster's wife), who happens to be the only daughter of Joe Canfield. He arrives with an invitation from her to her home for dinner. He plans to do that, and goes to see his great estate (which turns out to be a little log cabin), and then heads for the dinner invitation. In the meantime word has spread to the Canfields that the last McKay is in town. They are planning on killing Willie when (to their general consternation and surprise) he shows up for dinner.

What follows is how Keaton twists southern hospitality into a pretzel as Joe Canfield and his two sons keep an eye on Willie in the hope that he leaves the house long enough to be shot. At first Willie is unaware of all this, but gradually he realizes what is going on, and he is as determined to stay inside their home as long as possible. This delights Virginia Canfield (Talmadge) until she realizes the danger she has put Willie into. Soon she's trying to figure out how to prolong this visit beyond the conclusion of dinner.

Eventually it is impossible to maintain the strained bond of hospitality. Willie flees into the forest, pursued by vengeful Canfields. The tricks here include a memorable demonstration on the dangers of the law gravity involving Willie and one of his pursuers and a ledge overlooking a waterfall. The waterfall also turned out to be nearly fatal - Keaton took a serious fall in the shooting, and did not realize for several years that he had broken his neck (and survived). Another unconscious serious element is Joe Roberts - he had suffered a stroke during the filming, and insisted on continuing his scenes when he "recovered". There are scenes where he is seen wandering in the forest, but acting really lost - like he can't tell what is going on around him. Roberts (an old family friend of Buster's) died later in 1923, OUR HOSPITALITY being the last film he made with Keaton.

Despite the downer of Roberts' illness and Keaton's close call, the film works well, and remains consistently funny. As a second level Keaton film it is a good introduction to his work. As an intriguing look at Keaton's fascination with trains, it is a fine introduction to his masterpiece THE GENERAL.
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