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After the Intolerance burlesque of The Three Ages, a different consideration of Griffithian harmonies and frenzies. The gravity of the situation is carefully registered in the prologue, and then there's Buster Keaton astride a pedal-less bicycle in a gag modified by Ford in Young Mr. Lincoln. The estranged scion heads South ca. 1830, getting there is half the fun: "Onward sped the iron monster," not quite yet a train but a rickety row of stagecoaches pulled by a steam engine, so bumpy it crushes a top hat into a certain pork pie hat. (The stubborn burro won't move so the tracks do.) The joke on feuding clans has the stranger fall for a belle (Natalie Talmadge) whose Pa (Joe Roberts) and brothers (Francis X. Bushman Jr., Craig Ward) want him dead as part of an intergenerational revenge code. The territory comes with a mixture of courtliness and bloodlust, as a guest the hero sees parlor as sanctuary ("We'll Miss You When You're Gone" is played at the harpsichord) while his hosts reach for their pistols as soon as he steps outside. The quintessential Keaton situation, the unfriendly landscape on which stunts and epiphanies flower, one of his first feature-length works and already a peerless elegance of form. The hero walking down Main Street while the armed opponent shares the frame unseen is a bedrock visual for many a Western, later on hunter and prey are connected by a short rope as they take turns tumbling off a cliff. The detonated dam, a gown for the getaway horse, so it goes all the way to the breathtaking waterfall rescue with reference to Way Down East. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" hangs on the punchline, just a question of sticking to your guns. With Monte Collins, Kitty Bradbury, and Joe Keaton. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |