"Our Hospitality" isn't Buster Keaton's greatest film, but shows a young pioneer on his way.As Willie McKay, Buster inherits a family estate down South circa 1830. To stake his claim, Willie must survive two things: 1. A ride on the "iron monster" which chugs ungently across hilly terrain. 2. The "hospitality" of the rival Canfield clan who wants to send an unwary Willie to the boneyard with the rest of the McKays.Watching Buster riding a train down South immediately conjures up thoughts of his later "The General," and there are plenty of other signposts for Buster fans. After finding himself unable to wear his foppish top hat in a coach with a low ceiling, Buster shifts to more practical headgear: his trademark porkpie, which remains with him thereafter. He's even joined this one time by his real-life wife Natalie Talmadge, who plays a young woman smitten with Willie to both their perils.I was prepared to not like Talmadge, as she didn't have much of a career in movies other than making misery of Buster's private and professional life later on. But she's quite affecting here. Keaton and co-director Joseph Blystone do a lot to draw out a naturally reticent quality in Talmadge; she and Buster work well together…at least here.The opening section features a very serious, overplayed dramatic "prologue" that isn't really needed and puts things on the wrong footing tone-wise. Buster gets a lot of mileage from his clattering train prop, but overuses the same gags. A big stunt at the end involving a waterfall, while jawdropping, lacks the comic underpinnings typically found with Keaton. It could be something out of "Perils Of Pauline."Most critically, the pacing is off. There are many good gags and funny bits of business, but the set-ups take too long. I'm still amused watching the third straight slow-loading flintlock gag in as many minutes, and that's something, but you so often get more from Buster.Keaton's genius shines through in many places, though, particularly at the Canfield house where he is the unwelcome guest of his would-be killers. They operate under a strict code of honor that won't let them shoot a guest (though the same code apparently says nothing about shooting an unwary victim in the back). Watching Willie work every angle he can think of to stay a guest is Keaton in prime form, whether presenting a series of really bad dog tricks or dressing as a woman.And there are some stunts as funny as they are awesome, like one where Willie is actually "rescued" by one of the Canfields on a steep cliff, and the two men wind up tied to one another as killer and prey. The period comedy is good, too; like an early shot of Broadway and 42nd Street in Manhattan's cowtown days, when Willie sits a bicycle watching a lone wagon pass by: "This is getting' to be a dangerous crossin'!"There's enough of that to make "Our Hospitality" good fun, and the stunt work, however off tonally, remains amazing even today. If it's not as great as other Buster comedies, it's Buster's own fault for making his later work so much better than this.

Buster Keaton's best known outing on a train was "The General", but he had a similar experience a few years earlier. "Our Hospitality" casts him as the son of a family that's been feuding with another family in the early 1800s. The other family had murdered his father, prompting his mother to move with him to New York. Now that he's returning home to reclaim what he assumes is a mansion, the other family is ready to finish him off. But a wrench gets thrown in the works when he falls for the family's daughter (Natalie Talmadge) on the train.The best part of the movie is the whole sequence on the train. It just goes to show that inventions aren't perfect when tried the first time! (of course, some of the mishaps along the way don't help matters) A few other scenes allow Keaton to show off his physical humor, especially the whole sequence in the river. Seriously, Keaton's timing is perfect. It all goes to show that you don't need words for a movie to be funny. "The Artist" seems to have renewed interest in silent cinema, and I would say that "Our Hospitality" is definitely one that you should check out.

Buster Keaton can't help himself: he's always got to have something to have look at, to make as an expression of doubt, fear, exasperation at a situation that is about as impassable as possible (if not impossible, not for Buster of course). In Our Hospitality he's caught in a seemingly untenable situation as the ignorant (not stupid) McKay son plopped into an old family feud war that had been raging for generations and is ignited by his return to claim his family's property. This is the kind of feud where, in those rugged 19th century times, people killed one another just because they came from a family whose rivalry went back for generations (think the ape attack from 2001 only a smidgen more sophisticated with weaponry). But there is a classic comic catch for Canfield men in dealing with Willie McKay - they can't kill him while a 'guest' in their home, and the girl of the house, Natalie Talmadge's character, has become smitten with him. Oh boy.Our Hospitality starts a little slow, but then again it's the simple set-up to a more intricate (but still simple) set of events. It's about by the time of the 15 minute mark that we finally get the first real bits of comedy in the story, as Keaton and Talmadge ride on a strange winding and crazy train across states, and where everything from getting separated by the rickety train cars to cows on the tracks hold up things. But this is just the amusing stuff; what Keaton and his co-director are holding back are both the comedy-of-manner and comedy-of-physical acts that are to come when Willie steps into the Canfield home. This is where things get, actually, fairly dark if one thinks about it, as it's all about killing a man for doing nothing except being a certain person with a particular name. Seeing little things along the way, like Willie's reaction to a neighboring man and wife having a big fight, is equally as hilarious as the steps Willie makes to not leave the house after knowing his fate if he steps outside (will the dress, or the games with the dog, save him just yet as a "permanent resident?") As par for the course Keaton leads up to an incredible climax at a waterfall- maybe close to being *too* incredible, but why carp after a while- but leads up to it carefully, at a pace that is nearly impeccable; just watching him trying to fish and eluding the Canfields unwittingly under the dam-burst river is just fine enough, but to top it off with the continuously top-after-top of the waterfall makes it a career highlight. Overall I might not recommend the film as unanimously as The General or Sherlock Jr, it should be a must for anyone wanting not one but two solid train sequences- precursors, in fact, to the mini-masterpieces he'd stage later on in his films- and for some of those little moments where we see Keaton at his most clever and winning by seemingly doing little except showing his version of concern - a slight raise of the eye, a movement of the head, says everything. It's not entirely dead-pan; it's approximate for what Keaton would do, and just seeing him at a dinner table is as riveting as dangling from a rope with nowhere good to go. 9.5/10

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.