Just noticed Buster Keaton's masterwork "The General" is scheduled to be shown at 0:30 July 5 on TCM eastern time. If you haven't seen it, it is well worth the staying up for......

dave

Netflix has this on instant play as well.

Why wait? It's available any time on YouTube.

True, it is on Youtube in the "Movies" section, but the music that Youtube uses is classical which does not fit the movie at all. My library has at least 4 copies of "The General" on VHS, and they use a soundtrack that is made to fit the movie. For example, in the opening scene, the piano is used to sound like a train and train whistle. I do wonder what soundtrack the T.V. showing will use.

Dialup customers find long downloads costly and innefficient. Anybody with cable - or at least most cable providers - carry this network.

dave

That reminds me. Last year, the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, VA (one of the last theatres built with an organ, which is still in pristine working condition) did a special showing of The General. There was a 30-minute organ concert, then the film played with live organ accompaniment. Very cool to witness--and well worth the effort if it ever happens in your area.

The film is well worth seeing also--if for nothing else to see the audacity of stunts that Buster Keaton pulled off with the railroad equipment. Very easy to see how some of the later comics, Jackie Chan in particular, got a lot of their ideas.

I would have loved to have seen that! I actually sat down and watched "The General" on Netflix today and it gets better each time. My favorite scene is when he runs through the dead end siding, backs up then tries to go forward but slips like mad then he jumps out and start throwing sand by hand while the engine takes off without him.

This movie should definitely be on any railfan's movie list.

Kevin Gilliam's comments about the stunts reminds me that Keaton and the others did their own, and all of it was "real," including the bit where Keaton rides into the engine house on the side rod of his 4-4-0. The actor who pulled the throttle on that one was very worried; if the engine slipped, Keaton would very likely be dead. Of course, the stunt went off, and we are able to enjoy the "great stone face," as Keaton was called.

Perhaps the greatest stunt man of all time was Harold Lloyd. If you've seen a movie still of a timid-looking fellow in a suit and horn-rimmed glasses hanging from a clock above a city street that's a long way down, that's Lloyd, from "Safety Last.". The scene is real; it's not a process shot, like a rear projection job.

Lloyd did a "railroad" movie that's a hoot, called "Speedy." It's the story of the last horsecar line in New York City, and the transit cabal wants his franchise. Much of the movie is of the antics he goes through to keep in operation without a horse, including hitching his horse car to a limosine and ringing the bell, which panics the owner and driver into going faster and faster, thinking they are being pursued by a mad motorman; he also made a short (which I haven't seen) called "Off your Trolley," which of course features street cars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lloyd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lloyd_filmography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedy_(film)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AguYLYEn ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyCJAWfV ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYutrQiV ... re=related

Have fun.

Those stunts are incredible. I really admire how every stunt is so thoroughly planned out, and how you really wonder how the hell he is going to get out of whatever mess he's in. The bit with the cannon illustrates this perfectly.

Here is the film on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b24wqhy0Zo

To see this movie in a theater setting with organ accompaniment is really great. For local events, I'd suggest looking up a local chapter of ATOS, the American Theater Organ Society. <www.atos.org> The chapter here in San Diego did it a few years ago, with our museum providing "ushers" wearing their train crew outfits.

Our church actually has a theater organ, with literally "all the bells and whistles." A number of years ago, our church's old electronic organ died, and the local ATOS chapter owned a theater organ, with no place to put it. We worked a deal with them where they own and maintain the organ, and can use the church for their concerts on Sunday afternoons/ Saturday nights, etc. The church uses it during Sunday services. A great way for two totally different organizations to cooperate for their mutual benefit.

A quick look at the ATOS site, shows that The General will be playing at the Riviera Theater in North Tonawanda, New York on July 14

I would have to agree with Jim Baker about seeing the movie in a theater with a Theater Organ doing the music. There was a score used for the movie that went with it. We enjoyed it here in Wichita, Kansas when the local group did silent movie night with the Mighty Wurlitzer from the Paramount Theater in New York City.

And, I should have mentioned that the performance in North Tonawanda would be especially fitting. That is the town where the "Mighty Wurlitzers" were built!