The General is the greatest of Buster Keaton’s features—his most inventive, ambitious, and perfectly crafted film. To say this is not simply to conjure up some scale of achievement, with The General at one end, and say, Battling Butler at the other. The General is more than a highpoint in a Keaton Continuum; it is also unique among his works. And this is thanks to a little man, Johnnie Gray, whom Keaton plays, at the centre of it all. Utterly capable, Johnnie Gray is no typical Keaton hero.
In fact, I’d trust Johnnie with my life.
I’ve been reading a lot of vintage comic books lately, most made between the 1940s and the ’60s. By the current standards of the medium, they’re pretty silly: Characters are broadly drawn, in both the literal and figurative sense, and the stories are predictable. But the pages are also bold and colourful; the language strident; the enthusiasm for every implausible event clear and unapologetic. And that’s just fine. In these old, well-loved tales, everything deserved an exclamation mark.
The Ice Flood is like that. It delivers with gusto from start to finish, and director George B. Seitz (who specialized in action serials) even shows some artistic flair along the way. I bet you’d like it.
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