Clyde Bruckman; Buster Keaton
Come vinsi la guerra

If you've seen "Love and Death" (1975) by Woody Allen, you know it, this film is extensively referenced. After all, there's nothing to be done, "The General" (or "The General," as the questionable Italian title goes) is considered not only a classic but the most successful film of Keaton the actor and, above all, of Keaton the director. The last film he directed himself, followed by a good movie "Steamboat Bill, Jr." (1928) attributed to Charles F. Reiner and the last masterpiece, "The Cameraman" (1928), perhaps his pinnacle, co-directed by Keaton but formally almost exclusively directed by Edward Sedgwick, before the definitive and unexpected decline.

"The General" was presented as a comic epic, someone even dubbed Keaton "the David Wark Griffith of comic cinema" to give an idea of what this incredible effort of Keaton was, released in 1927 under the Universal seal which, unlike Metro at the time, could not rely on an effective distribution network and, with a very high budget (415,232 dollars), saw the film earn just enough (474,264 dollars) to cover the production costs. The critics dismissed it: Picture Play wrote of "a long and dull comedy"; in Life, Robert Sherwood criticized it harshly, "Keaton didn't know when and where to stop," criticizing its, in his opinion, its directorial ambition; the Variety Bible slammed it, "there's no moment in the film capable of evoking enthusiasm [...] A film with very poor prospects for prestige theaters"; The New York Times accused Keaton of having overdone it. The premiere on March 11, 1927, in Los Angeles was, however, a triumph, thanks also to the presence of many prominent figures of the Hollywood jet set of the time. The reason for such criticism perhaps lies in a curious projection speed incident, as well recounted by Kevin Brownlow in his "The Search for Buster Keaton":

"[...] Part of the blame goes to the projection systems. The General was shot at a speed similar to that used in sound cinema (the film is silent, ed.). [...] It's certain that in many theaters it was shown at too low a speed. Even twenty frames per second is too little. The critics who saw it at the wrong speed and without music had little chance of writing favorably about it."

But what, then, is this "The General"? Keaton came from some (almost) entirely successful comedies, from "Go West" (a bizarre title, better the original "Go West," 1925) and "Battling Butler," 1926. Often compared to the "brother" Charlie Chaplin who had already directed very expensive and ambitious productions, Keaton also wanted to prove to be a qualified director and not just (though it was already quite a bit) the author of comedies generally lasting a little over an hour. So he moved to Oregon to film his most ambitious project, remembering that at the time Keaton was only 31 and already an international star, and the American Civil War (which serves as the backdrop for the entire movie) was the most dramatic recent event that had hit the United States. He surely must have heard about it from veterans of the conflict or, as some reported, from his father himself.

The main character of the film is a locomotive, the General of the title. He used one, beautiful and dating back to the events depicted in the film, which was on display at the Chattanooga railway station (now preserved at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History near Atlanta). Initially, the descendants of the film's protagonists turned their noses up as soon as they learned that the work would essentially turn out to be a comedy, unhappy about the prospect of someone wanting, in their view, to comically rewrite a dramatic story. Problems also arose with the citizens of Cottage Grove, literally besieged by a very large crew accompanied by 18 trucks of cinematographic equipment so much that a newspaper of the time dubbed it "the new Hollywood." With some events on the verge of comedy:

"[...] The merchants fantasized about the flood of money that would pour into the town. Two boys improvised as bootleg alcohol sellers. And the barber hired new assistants and installed new chairs. This was before discovering that all the actors had the opposite problem: to fit the part, they had to grow their hair to the lengths customary at the time of the Civil War" (Kevin Brownlow)

The filming began on June 8, 1926. The crew, according to the reportage of the "Guard" director, was kind and affable, and even Keaton himself was not easily disturbed when some locals accidentally ruined, by passing during filming, the shot of a scene, and he, being an accomplished baseball player, involved the entire population organizing the Keaton's Hollywood Star by involving local teams.

"Those who think a movie star like Keaton leads a life of luxury should see him on set. There are no fixed hours. He's either shooting, doing something for the film, thinking about something related to the film, giving instructions on what's still to be done, or he's fishing or playing baseball. And Keaton's hours are everyone's hours" (Sentinel)

The film's main scene is the destruction of a bridge, and filming it was like making a movie within a movie. Jack Little (an explosives expert already engaged on the set of "The Big Parade," 1925) was called in to prepare nine hundred charges, and on July 23, the scheduled day for the main scene, all of Cottage Grove was mobilized. People came from all over the state, with an estimated crowd of three to four thousand people, despite the filming, scheduled for 11 in the morning, being continually postponed by Keaton. Following a series of hitches, the take was given at 3 in the afternoon, and pop, everything blew up. Among the spectators was Grace Matteson, the daughter of a local carpenter:

"I was twelve years old, and it was right when I got the measles [...] But my father said to me: You can't miss it. It's a one-take shot, do or die. [...] We knew he would use dynamite, and for this reason, we were all terribly concerned. I remember my father, as well as some crew members, feared they had used too much. They had to be careful; otherwise, they would blow up the train, not just the bridge" (Kevin Brownlow)

Now, it should be briefly explained what the film is about. The story takes place in Georgia in 1861. A train engineer, Johnnie Gray, is equally in love with his locomotive and his fiancée, Annabelle Lee. The Union Northerners steal both of his loves. He, solitary, goes to get them back. Here Keaton is truly formidable in managing all the various narrative levels on which the entire film rests. There is action, there is adventure, there is amusement, there is rhythm, there is irony. Above all, there is a clean and airy direction, capable of exalting itself in the most intimate scenes as well as the epic ones where nature does not act as a backdrop to the action but becomes the protagonist. If in the previous "Go West" he played with and ironized the western, in this film, he narrates the vast open spaces of more rural America as if it were a western but with railroads and trains instead of cowboys and Indians. The environmental reconstruction is wonderful; it's as if the entire troupe embarked on a time travel and was catapulted into mid-19th-century Georgia. Such harmony, and we were in 1926!, was rarely seen. Perhaps, for some hardcore Keaton fans more accustomed to films where gags piled up one after another, this film might not fully please because, to be clear, the gags are there, and they're all carefully crafted but aren't breakneck, instead within a context where the narrative prevails over the segment.

"[...] It's the rare case of a comic movie that is also a compelling tale of action and adventure" (Morando Morandini)

Keaton's impassive face crosses a piece of American history where, as in the best tradition of classics made in the USA, love and war are irreversibly intertwined. After all, cinema in the silent era has (almost) always followed paths that rooted in tradition and national history. It couldn't not happen to Keaton too. (Chaplin had already thought of that the year before with the supreme masterpiece "The Gold Rush").

Of course, over the years, the film has been re-evaluated and is now considered a classic in every respect. In 1989 it was included in the National Film Registry and regularly appears in every respectable ranking. However, be wary of the various editions released, limiting it to Italy, over the years — cut, remounted (there is one, terribly made, of 75') and orient toward the 84' version, the original version. Not to mention the colorized versions (a plague that struck a lot of cinema then, from Chaplin to Laurel and Hardy, at the beginning of the '90s).