Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

framptonhollis Buster Keaton perfectly showcases his ability to twist genres in this all time comedy class, as he turns the premise of a Hitchcockian thriller into a riotous romp that is both clever and silly. Filled with some of Keaton's finest stunts, and some surprisingly intense (but also hilarious) climactic action/chase scenes, "Our Hospitality" is a simple and sweet joyride. It is a film made with love and care, as Keaton shows his passion for filmmaking with some of his breathtaking and memorable stunts. It takes real dedication to write, direct, and star in your own film-on top of doing dangerous stunts that depend entirely on timing. This is why Buster Keaton is one of my idols, he did some much hard work and still managed to make some damn great movies!

mmallon4 All of Buster Keaton's silent films had a beauty and a grace to them, but Our Hospitality exemplifies this best. A mini epic, full of beautiful, lush scenery and landscape shots; visually speaking, I consider this to be Keaton's best film. Take the film's finale as an example, as Keaton walks along the edge of a cliff with huge forest backdrops stretching as far as the eye can see or the equally as impressive sequence in which an entire dam is blown up. But the sequence which best showcases this idealised look at 1830's America is the supreme majesty of the steam locomotive sequence; a predecessor to what would come in The General. This is one of the greatest sequences Keaton ever captured on film, with the music score on the Thames Silent's version giving it (as well as the film as a whole), an even greater sense of awe. Filming as well the construction of such large scale props must have been no easy feat. It's a sequence which is beautiful, funny and thrilling at the same time, filled with so many inventive sight gags. When Keaton's top hat doesn't fit on his head in the locomotive carriage, he puts on his iconic pork pie hat; that's more like it! It's a bumpy unstable ride to say the least, and even has a dog chasing it throughout for that extra bit of amusement.The set up of Our Hospitality is the type of melodrama which was rife during the silent period (and what Keaton himself parodied in his short The Frozen North). One family has a feud with another which lasts from one generation to the next, and nobody remembers what caused the feud to begin with ("Men of one family grew up killing men of another for no other reason expect their fathers had done so"). Ah simple but effective naivety; why can't we all just get along? Keaton's birth place is not stated during the film, but it's clearly located in Appalachia, prior to his character being sent to New York for a better upbringing; Keaton the sophisticated New Yorker vs. hillbilly red necks. Yep, we have a movie here ripe with hillbilly stereotypes. On top of tapping into the Appalachian cultural stereotype of feuding families, there are plenty of guns stored in the Canfield house, but when they're not allowed to use them due to their comical dedication to be hospitable, they just ask the townspeople to borrow a gun. Likewise in another scene Keaton sees a husband abusing his wife, steps in and throws the husband aside, yet the wife starts attacking Keaton himself. Keaton then runs away, followed by the husband ordering the wife back into the house. Ah the glorious lack of political correctness.

theowinthrop 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.

Michael_Elliott Our Hospitality (1923) *** (out of 4) Buster Keaton feature has him playing a Southern boy who goes home to reclaim his father's house but he meets a girl on the train down and quickly falls in love. What he doesn't know is that this girl is on the opposite side of a family feud and her father and brother swears to kill him--if they can get him out of their house. I know many people consider this Keaton's best feature but I wouldn't go that far and in some ways I think the film is overrated. To me the film is highly uneven and feels like three shorts turned into a feature. The first part with the long gag of the funky train works to a point but after a while the jokes grow tiresome. The middle part with Keaton refusing to leave the house so he can avoid being shot contains the majority of the laughs. The final segment dealing with Keaton and his girl falling in a river and attempting to avoid going down a waterfall is pure genius. The stunt of Keaton swinging out over the waterfall to save the girl is just a remarkable thing to watch.