THE GENERAL

"If you lose the war, don't blame me"--rejected Confederate recruit Buster Keaton, THE GENERAL

Last night I dreamed about THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH, a powerful Australian movie I saw thirty years ago. (Today I can't find it on video.  zip.ca did list WE OF THE NEVER NEVER, another Australian movie I want to see again, but it's one of their many unavailable titles.)

It was warm today so I finally put away my electric heater.  I even opened the windows for a bit!

In the afternoon I saw INTO THE DEEP, an absorbing Ric Burns documentary for PBS about whaling in American history.  Much about the ESSEX, a whaling ship wrecked by an aggressive whale leading to cannibalism, and about MOBY-DICK, which was partly based on that disaster.  Whalers were sort of the cowboys of the pre-Civil War US.

In the evening I went to the Revue and saw Buster Keaton's silent classic THE GENERAL yet again. (They also showed Keaton's National Film Board short THE RAILRODDER, where he crossed Canada on a railroad cart.) Like CITIZEN KANE, it never loses its freshness.  Lots of bits like the scene where Keaton's stopped the engine to gather firewood and the girl takes the opportunity to tie a rope between two little fir trees to block the pursuing engine.  The train predictably uproots the trees in a second, but what we didn't expect is that they get caught in the wheels, forcing it to stop and lose valuable time!  I also like the bit where she's feeding the engine, but she throws one log overboard because it has a hole in it.