IMDb #136 Review: The General (1926)

Source: Wikipedia

Confederate stereotype Johnny Gray loves his country (the South), loves his train (the titular General), and loves his one-dimensional girlfriend Annabelle Lee (lifted straight from the Poe poem).

The kid's such a good engineer, the military recruiters won't let him enlist. He's bummed. Even more bummed when Yankees hijack his train and accidentally make off with his lady, too.

(Despite his fanatical loyalty to her, she believes the anonymous liars who claim he's a bloody coward too afraid to fight. He's no coward, just a lucky idiot. She, however, is an unlucky idiot.)

He chases them, they chase him back. And that's pretty much the whole movie.

Disappointed? Don't be. The journey's the thing.

Our intrepid hero gives chase on foot, one guy versus a dozen. On foot, by handcart, by hipster bicycle. And somehow he obtains a train. Yankees sabotage the telegraph pole and railway line? He proceeds by tenacity, ingenuity, sheer stupid luck.

He clambers like a monkey over his engine while it's barreling at breakneck (actually break-everything) speed. He puts the "loco" in locomotive. 

Honestly, it's a welcome relief from brutal realism. Blood and guts, moral quandaries, existential angst -- none of that complexity here. Just death-defying stunts, clever hijinks, slapstick in synch with the screechy-scratchy soundtrack. It leaves the tremendous complexity of the Civil War implied, fortunately untouched.

What's included is more important than what's overlooked. Certain details (like sound) aren't there, because they aren't necessary. Like the dialogue, there's plenty of implied talking, but the text cards tell us what they're saying when it's important for the story.

And after days of hard work fighting train-hijacking girl-stealing Dixie-hating Yankees, the army might just let the guy enlist. Congratulations, hero, now you too can go forth and die horribly of some untreatable disease that has nothing at all to do with the war.

75 minutes.