Our Hospitality (1923)

Buster Keaton is a victim of the villain's hospitality

Directed by John G. Blystone and Buster Keaton

Starring Buster Keaton, Joe Roberts, and Natalie Talmadge 

Produced by Joseph M. Schenk Productions

As if life was not hard enough in Appalachia, a generations-long feud between the McKays and Canfields ensures that members of those families will come to an early end.  Such is the lot of John McKay when James Canfield pays him a visit.  The two lock eyes in a downpour, fire their weapons and add two more casualties to the conflict.

James Canfield's brother Joseph has stayed away from the violence, but, seeing his brother gunned down, the man vows to raise his sons to avenge the Canfield name.  For her part, John McKay's widow sends their son Willie away to stay with an aunt in New York.  He is raised mercifully unaware of the blood feud between the families.

Twenty years go by and the time comes for Willie to claim his family's homestead in Appalachia.  He learns of the bloody history of his family name and leaves on an eventful train ride (with his dog following along) that finds him seated next to Joseph Canfield's daughter.  They don't know each other so they pass the time amicably dealing with the bumps and detours that an early train ride might bring.

Upon arriving at his birthplace, Willie encounters one of Canfield's sons, who recognizes Willie as his sworn enemy.  Canfield is unarmed however and can't find a weapon to borrow before McKay heads off to find his estate.

McKay's dreams of inheriting a mansion are blown to pieces when he finds the rundown shack his family called home.  He finds Canfield's daughter outside her home and she, still unaware of their family ties, invites the man to dinner.  Willie arrives for supper, but the elder Canfield and his two sons cannot kill him in their house as it would violate their rules of hospitality.

Willie overhears this and realizes that to leave the home is a death sentence.  So, he contrives ways to stay in the house and attempts to sneak out at various points.

Will Willie ever get out of the house and can he do it alive?  And what of the blossoming young love between McKay and Canfield?  Will it end better than Romeo and Juliet?

Our Hospitality is the answer to one of my complaints about many of these early comedies: stakes, or the lack of them.  With the exception of Charlie Chaplin's The Kid, none of the films I have seen have set up a world in which you feel like harm could come to our lead character.  Even as Harold Lloyd is scaling an 8-story building in Safety Last!, he's winking at the camera and you know it will all turn out okay.

Here, the stakes and the danger are real.  There is no humor in the opening melodrama that sees Willie's father killed.  You believe that these are families capable of killing you over your last name.  That opening is important to the rest of the film.

The next scene is an extended sequence on the train ride to his house and the scenes are humorous.  I smiled as a hillbilly threw rocks at the train and the engineer responded with a volley of firewood (which is apparently how the hillbilly gets his firewood).  I also liked how the train got around the donkey that had stopped in its path.  That said, Our Hospitality is really about Willie dealing with this feud and the train is an unnecessary diversion from that.

When the train finally arrives at its destination, the stakes go way up.  One of Canfield's sons offers to show the young McKay around, but he keeps stopping in shops to ask to borrow a gun.  Willie is unaware and the situation is both comical and full of danger.

There are some great set pieces of McKay eluding the Canfields, including a magically appearing waterfall that conceals our hero, but the movie really hits its stride once Willie arrives at the Canfield home.  As they are seated for the meal, a waiter drops a tray and McKay leaps to his feet mistaking the bang for a gunshot.  During the prayer before eating, Willie looks up to find all three Canfield men have one eye open and locked on him.

Fortunately for McKay, a sudden rainstorm (recalling how his father was killed) prevents the guests from leaving.  Willie takes the opportunity to settle into the Canfield's home as a semi-permanent guest.  At one point, when he needs to leave the home to retrieve something, he casually takes the gun from the Canfield son who is guarding him and fires it into the ground.  The time it takes to reload gives him the seconds he needs to exit.

Of course, ultimately our hero has to leave the safety of the house and we are treated to a fantastic chase sequence that is visually very imaginative.  There's a great tracking shot following McKay and his pursuers that may be a first for me during the marathon.

Then there is the climax.  McKay has escaped his enemies by improvised boat, but finds himself floating through some rapids toward a waterfall.  A rope that he had tied around his belly earlier becomes tied to a log which leads to him dangling precariously over the waterfall.  Meanwhile, Canfield's daughter ends up in the water herself trying to save him.  And she's now heading for the waterfall.  The stunt at the end blew my mind.

There's a lot to love here.  They sell the idea that in this place the Canfields could gun down Willie in the middle of the street with no repercussions.  I love the visual image of Willie's dream home literally exploding when he finds the estate he inherited.  There are some great sight gags (is that a woman or a horse?) and comedy beats that are perfectly timed.

Still, I don't think the film is completely successful at balancing the danger of McKay's situation with the comedy.  The jokes work best when they relieve the tension of a situation.  There are moments of slapstick for the sake of slapstick that feel out of place.

As far as the acting, Keaton is superb here.  His previous roles have not called on him to do much, but you can feel his fear and trepidation at every turn in Our Hospitality.  In addition, Joe Roberts is great and menacing as the Canfield patriarch and the rest of the film is populated with some great character actors.

Keaton's latest is my favorite of his to date.  As I said, it doesn't always manage its tone well and I could have lost some of the opening train sequence and not missed it.  This one was definitely worth my time and would be worth yours too.

****1/2 out of *****

NOTES: Keaton was apparently a big fan of trains.  Word has it he set the bulk of the movie in 1930 so he could build a replica of Stephenson's Rocket, one of the first steam trains.

The baby in the prologue was Keaton's actual son, Buster Keaton, Jr.  Natalie Talmadge is Keaton's real life wife and Joe Keaton (Buster's father) played one of the train engineers. Gotta love nepotism!

Joe Roberts suffered a stroke during production and died shortly after filming.  He played the bad guy in most of Keaton's films to that point.