Joe Keaton

From 1920 to 1965, the great Buster Keaton made spectacular use of locomotives in his films. This video essay charts the course of his iconic cinematic career across the many tracks he rode along on screen: as a young man in the surge of his silent movie ascent in Our Hospitality, while making his masterpiece The General, and traversing the width of Canada on a railway speeder car as an old man in The Railrodder.

A hillbilly family, hard-hit by the end of Prohibition, decide to set the biggest brother up as a professional wrestler.

During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.

A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meager skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.

A young man falls for a young woman on his trip home; unbeknownst to him, her family has vowed to kill every member of his family.

Two farmhands compete for the love of the farmer's daughter.

The Romeo and Juliet story played out in a tenement neighborhood with Buster and Virginia's families hating each other over the fence separating their buildings.

With little luck at keeping a job in the city a New Yorker tries work in the country and eventually finds his way leading a herd of cattle to the West Coast.

In order to impress the father of a girl he is keen on, a young man goes to the city in search of work. In his letters home he writes of his various jobs which her imagination expands into much nobler ones than those that he is actually attempting.

A young golfer is mugged by an escaped convict and finds himself in a prison where he foils a jailbreak.

Botany major Buster mistakenly graduates in electrical engineering and is hired to wire a new home.

A series of misadventures occur when Buster is mistaken for a criminal on the lam.

Roscoe's wife, tired of his endless drunkenness, reads of an operation that cures alcoholism and has him admitted to No Hope Sanitarium to get the surgery. Roscoe, wanting out, eventually disguises himself as a nurse to effect his escape.

At the Elk's Head Hotel bellhops torment the lobby, each other and guests. The elevator is powered by a stubborn horse. A sham robbery turns into a real one. And there is a chase on a runaway trolley.

Fatty plays a village blacksmith in “Jazzville,” an imaginary rural village. There is a rivalry between Fatty and Cy Klone, the garage owner, over the affections of a pretty schoolteacher. A city chap unites the two rivals when he tries to steal the girl. An annual village ball features amateur talent in vaudeville stunts with Keaton as a wriggling Fatima who charms a long black stocking from a cigar box like a snake. The film is presumed lost.

The story involves Arbuckle coming to the western town of Mad Dog Gulch after being thrown off a train and chased by Indians. He teams up with gambler/saloon owner Bill Bullhum, in trying to keep the evil Wild Bill Hickup away from Salvation Army girl, Salvation Sue. Fatty and Buster have a series of adventures trying to beat St. John, until they discover his one weakness: his ticklishness.