Our Hospitality

I've got more silent movies that I need to get off of my DVR, so next up on that list is the early Buster Keaton feature Our Hospitality.

We don't see Buster for several minutes. Instead, the movie starts with a prologue, set in Kentucky in 1810, telling us about the feud between the "Canfields" and the "McKays", an obvious reference to the Hatfields and McCoys. The families have been feuding so long that they don't know any more why the feud started. In any case, the feud is about to reach a climax with John McKay and James Canfield getting into a shootout that leaves both of them dead. McKay left behind a young wife and infant son, while James had a brother who had three children. Mrs. McKay is so sick of the whole feud that she decides to take her kid and go back to her sister in New York, which as we see is surprisingly undeveloped for 1810.

Two decades pass, and Willie grows up (played as an adult by Buster Keaton) not having learned much about the feud because his now-decesed mother didn't want to tell him about it. Why bother your kid with stuff that's long-ago history? Adult Willie gets a letter which is from a lawyer telling him that the family left some property in Kentucky that's now his, and he's going to have to come to Kentucky to claim it. So he gets on the very new-fangled technology of the steam train to head off to Kentucky. (The first steam trains did start running right around this time, but there wasn't enough track to get the characters from New York to Kentucky.) This is the chance for Buster to use some of his train-based comedy which he seemed to like and would reach a peak in The General, as well as introducing us to the female lead, Virginia (Natalie Talmadge, Buster Keaton's real life wife).

The two meet and fall in love along the train journey, although it turns out that Virginia is in fact Virginia Canfield, the third sibling in the family in the prologue of the movie. Their father Joseph, who was not the one killed, had wanted the feud to end, and would before Willie's arrival probably have considered the feud as long-ago history as Willie's mom did. But Joseph's two sons are out for blood, and immediately look for ways to bump off Willie and get Willie's inheritance. Not that it's a particularly big inheritance, as Willie finds out to his surprise.

He's invited to the Canfield place for dinner, having met Virginia, and the brothers figure out this would be a good time to kill Willie. Dad, for his part, doesn't think this is morally right, as being a guest at the Canfield place requires the Canfields to show "our hospitality". So it's the next day after Willie leaves that the two sons can go after Willie in a climax that involves a literal cliff-hanger, trains and a river flowing over a waterfall.

To me Our Hospitality isn't quite as good as later silents, but to be fair to Buster Keaton he was learning and movie technology was consistently improving. Keaton had only made one feature before this, and that one, Three Ages was structured so it could be re-edited into two-reelers if it had been necessary. In any case, although Our Hospitality is a bit slow at times and some of the train gags don't quite work, it's still Buster Keaton and he's always worth watching.