Better than decent Disney live-action historical works off the same Civil War incident Buster Keaton used for THE GENERAL/’26; here played straight and largely from a Northern P.O.V.* Fess Parker, at the height of his Davy Crockett coonskin popularity, brings his cut-rate Gregory Peck manners along as he leads a raiding party of Northerners-in-mufti across the border to Marietta, GA with a plan to steal Jeffrey Hunter’s ammo-loaded train (that’s ‘The General’) and head back North. That puts Jeffrey Hunter in the Buster Keaton spot. Sounds a little weird even without slapstick trimmings. Episodic tv director Francis D. Lyon works cleanly, but is held back by a lack of style (or rather 1950s Disney house-style), unvaried pacing and limited action chops. And his ‘just the facts, Ma’am’ approach reduces characters to lowest-common-denominator motivation, dumbed-down for textbook history comprehension. But the story remains compelling enough to keep us involved even with Junior High audio-visual department æsthetics that keep the lid on during a prison breakout sequence that ought to be the film’s climax. And everything suffers whenever Disney house composer Paul J. Smith pours on those generic background music cues. Look fast for a nice touch from engineer Slim Pickens, cookin’ off strips of bacon on the furnace door. More detail & observations like that could have made this something special.
DOUBLE-BILL: Like a Mathew Brady battlefield photo come to life (but with laughs!), good editions of THE GENERAL can be found on Lobster Films; KINO and EUREKA. CHASE probably more fun to watch if you see the Keaton film first.
READ ALL ABOUT IT: *It’s based on a book by conspirator William Pittenger whose estate moved to stop production on THE GENERAL back in ‘26. But with three separate survivor memoirs as well as Public Domain historic records the suit never had a chance. More info in James Curtis’s stunning new bio: BUSTER KEATON: A Filmmaker’s Life which also clears up a lot of misinformation on THE GENERAL, including it’s ultimate box-office performance.
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