GC Film Series - Special Event - Spring 2001Film Reel

Our Hospitality ('23)

Moving Film Reel

CAST & CREDITS: Our Hospitality (Buster Keaton Productions, for Metro Pictures, 1923). Starring Buster Keaton, Natalie Talmadge, Joseph Keaton, Buster Keaton, Jr., Kitty Bradbury, Joe Roberts, Leonard Clapham, Craig Ward and Ralph Bushman (later changed his name to Francis X. Bushman, Jr.). Directed by Buster Keaton and Jack Blystone. Cinematography by Gordon Jennings and Elgin Lessley; Art Direction by Fred Gaubori; Costumes by Walter Israel. B&W. Running Time: 75 minutes.
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Plot Summary

[From Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide]:

Buster goes to the South to claim a family inheritance, and falls in love with the daughter of a longtime rival clan. Sublime silent comedy, one of Buster's best, with a genuinely hair-raising finale. Incidentally, Buster married his leading lady in real life.

Comments/Reviews

NOTE: If you do not wish to have certain elements of the plot revealed, please wait to read these until after you have seen the film!

I. Excerpts from "LaserDisc Review" (at http://www.dvdlaser.com/)

[This film features a] "spectacular waterfall rescue... The film has one other supremely memorable sequence, a recreation of one of the first railroad trains, the [Stephenson] Rocket. It is a comically stylized but loving depiction of an infant train that could be outrun by a dog, and the extended sequence, which is set early in the movie, wins one's heart to the film before the real plot has even started. The central narrative concerns a young man who unknowingly inherits a blood feud when he comes of age and returns to the town where he was born. There is a 'Romeo and Juliet' romance and many clever gags, but it is the two sequences identified above which bookend the movie's thrills and make it as valuable as any of today's big-budget productions."

II. Excerpts from contemporary (1923) reviews:

The New York Times, on December 10, 1923, said, "That stoic comedian, Buster Keaton, has chosen to burlesque the feud drama in his latest effort, Our Hospitality, which is the feature this week at the Rialto. This picture is one of whims, and in many sequences whimsical. It starts rather slowly, but gathers speed with a vengeance toward the last reel. ..."

The Variety review of December 13, 1923, exclaimed, "This is an unusual comedy picture and probably the best thing Buster Keaton has been identified with. The picture is a novelty melange of dramatics, low comedy, laughs and thrills. .... The picture is splendidly cast, flawlessly directed and intelligently photographed. ..."

Harrison's Reports, for November 17, 1923, commented, "This comedy-drama excels primarily because of its fascinating originality; not a foot of it is commonplace. As the action supposedly occurs in New York City in 1830, ample opportunity is afforded for many quaintly charming costumes and for the showing of the now old fashioned mode of living and of travel characteristics of the time. ..."
[cited from http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/FeaturedVideo/video63.htm]

GC Film Series - Spring 2001

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