Director: Buster Keaton
Year: 1923
Country: US
Our Hospitality was a major cinematic event in 1923. After years of apprenticeship in comedy shorts, during which he demonstrated a mastery of the visual gag, Buster Keaton made his feature debut with The Three Ages, but it was more of an anthology made up of three different segments. It could be split into shorter comedies if the public did not warm up to Keaton as a feature length attraction. With this film, he put his full foot forward and abandoned the short for good. Following the feature debuts of Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, Keaton's film came at the right place and the right time.
The plot involves a man who has returned to his Appalachian homestead. On the trip, he falls for a young woman. The only problem is her family has vowed to kill every member of his family.
The story had the potential to be a Cecil B. Demille drama, but Keaton injects the grim subject with a dose of whimsical comedy and hair raising stunts, which nearly kill the actor/director off-screen. Keaton’s scenario is a riff on the notorious real-life feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys, which has largely come down in history as fodder for rural comedies and cartoons. This is his first truly plot-driven film; his earlier shorts held a strong reliance on gags to move a scene forward. The slower pace and subtler comedy show Keaton's confidence that he didn't need to clown non-stop to retain the audience's interest. The grand scale and period authenticity look forward to his later masterpieces, like The General.
Buster had always had a serious side, but this was the first time it dominated a film. Consequently, Our Hospitality is not his funniest work, but it has a unique sweetness and charm, rich with atmosphere and drama. Buster's performance is masterful in grace and sentimentality. The joke of the title is that once he enters the home of the rival family, they can't kill him without violating their code of hospitality—until he steps outside. Our Hospitality was the swan-song of Big Joe Roberts, who played the "heavy" in almost all of Keaton's early films. Already ill during the making of this film (he died shortly after it was completed), he plays the aged, forgiving patriarch of the Canfield clan.
Our Hospitality is a remarkable entry in the filmography of Buster Keaton. It's a masterpiece that shows the comedic genius in one of his finest endeavors. This is a strong start to his feature length career, certainly a tremendous preview of things to come. Remarkably this is a family affair as it stars Keaton, his father, his son, his wife and is produced by his brother-in-law. Praise it! 5/5
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