Glen Cavender

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.

In this one-hour special taped between March 9-17, 1981, Lily Tomlin and Dudley Moore join the Muppets in a tribute to film classics. Kermit the Frog hosts the program, which begins with an all-cast rendition of "Hey a Movie!" from The Great Muppet Caper.

An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards.

The film pivots around the local Norwegian doctor and his family. The doctor's wife (Ruth Gordon) wants to hold on to the pretence of gracious living and ignore their German occupiers. The doctor, Martin Stensgard (Walter Huston), would also prefer to stay neutral, but is torn. His brother-in-law, the wealthy owner of the local fish cannery, collaborates with the Nazis. The doctor's daughter, Karen (Ann Sheridan), is involved with the resistance and with its leader Gunnar Brogge (Errol Flynn). The doctor's son has just returned to town, having been sent down from the university, and is soon influenced by his Nazi-sympathizer uncle. Captain Koenig (Helmut Dantine), the young German commandant of the occupying garrison, whose fanatic determination to do everything by the book and spoutings about the invincibility of the Reich hides a growing fear of a local uprising.

When lovely and virtuous governess Henriette Deluzy comes to educate the children of the debonair Duc de Praslin, a royal subject to King Louis-Philippe and the husband of the volatile and obsessive Duchesse de Praslin, she instantly incurs the wrath of her mistress, who is insanely jealous of anyone who comes near her estranged husband. Though she saves the duchess's little son from a near-death illness and warms herself to all the children, she is nevertheless dismissed by the vengeful duchess as the attraction between the duke and Henriette continues to grow.

On the eve of World War II, the German Kurt Müller, his American-born wife Sara, and their three children, having lived in Europe for years, visit Sara's wealthy mother near Washington, DC. Kurt secretly works for the anti-Nazi resistance. A visiting Romanian count, becoming aware of this, seeks to blackmail him.

The trustees of Midwestern University have forced three teachers out of their jobs for being suspected communists. Trustee Ed Keller has also threatened mild mannered English Professor Tommy Turner, because he plans to read a controversial piece of prose in class. Tommy is upset that his wife Ellen also suggested he not read the passage. Meanwhile, Ellen's old boyfriend, the football player Joe Ferguson, comes to visit for the homecoming weekend. He takes Ellen out dancing after the football rally, causing Tommy to worry that he will lose her to Joe.

A sudden windfall has unexpected consequences on a working class girl during the Great Depression.

An actress hopes to regain her lost son by making it to the top.

A pair of slick Broadway producers con a wealthy cowboy into backing their show.

The Younger brothers return to Missouri after the Civil War with intent to avenge the misdeeds of William Merrick, a crooked banker who has been buying up warrants on back-taxes and dispossessing the farmers.

A young woman marries a man who turns out to be a bank robber.

An aspiring playwright finds himself an overnight Broadway success.

Canadian Mountie Steve Wagner captures a German Luftwaffe officer on a spy mission, who later escapes from the prison camp. To catch the spy ring, the Mounties employ a ruse so that the spies, believing Steve to be sympathetic, enlist him in their plans.

Three comrades graduate from Viriginia Military Institute. Bing has a chance to return to VMI as a football coach.

Outdoor drama about a newly-hired lumberjack discovering that his former girlfriend is now his new boss's wife.

An American vacations in Europe with her husband and watches him turn into a Nazi.

Dying Joan Ames meets criminal Dan Hardesty on a luxury liner as he is being transported back to America by policeman Steve Burke to face execution. Joan and Dan fall in love, their fates unbeknownst to one another.

Hank McHenry and Johnny Marshall work as power company linesmen. Hank is injured in an accident and subsequently promoted to foreman of the gang. Tensions start to show in the road crew as rivalry between Hank and Johnny increases.

A fallen woman seeks redemption at a Singapore rubber plantation. Melodrama.

A publicity man promotes his newspaper, but finds his boss always steals the credit.

After World War I, Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging, and out-of-work Eddie Bartlett becomes a cab driver. Eddie builds a fleet of cabs through delivery of bootleg liquor and hires Lloyd as his lawyer. George becomes Eddie's partner and the rackets flourish until love and rivalry interfere.

Down-on-his-luck John Ellman is framed for a judge's murder. After he's convicted and sentenced to death, witnesses come forth and prove his innocence. But it was too late for a stay to be granted and Ellman is executed. A doctor uses an experimental procedure to restore him to life, though the full outcome is other than expected.

McCord's gang robs the stage carrying money to pay Indians for their land, and the notorious outlaw "The Oklahoma Kid" Jim Kincaid takes the money from McCord. McCord stakes a "sooner" claim on land which is to be used for a new town; in exchange for giving it up, he gets control of gambling and saloons. When Kincaid's father runs for mayor, McCord incites a mob to lynch the old man whom McCord has already framed for murder.

James “Brick” Davis, a struggling attorney, owes his education to a mobster, but always has refused to get involved with the underworld. When a friend of his is gunned down by a notorious criminal, Brick decides to abandon the exercise of the law and join the Department of Justice to capture the murderer.

Socialite Judith Traherne lives a lavish but emotionally empty life. Riding horses is one of her few joys, and her stable master is secretly in love with her. Told she has a brain tumor by her doctor, Frederick Steele, Judith becomes distraught. After she decides to have surgery to remove the tumor, Judith realizes she is in love with Dr. Steele, but more troubling medical news may sabotage her new relationship, and her second chance at life.

FBI agent Ed Renard investigates the pre-War espionage activities of the German-American Bund.

A wealthy society doctor decides to research the medical aspects of criminal behaviour by becoming one himself. He joins a gang of thieves and proceeds to wrest leadership of the gang away from its extremely resentful leader.

In an effort to be able to afford expensive treatment for her gravely ill American husband, a retired German entertainer returns to the cabaret as Blonde Venus and catches the eye of a wealthy politician.

Fight promoter Nick Donati grooms a bellhop as a future champ, but has second thoughts when the 'kid' falls for his sister.

Get ready for a Gold Medal murder mystery! This "tense, thrilling mystery" ('California Congress of Parents and Teachers') pits Charlie Chan against international spies who are using the Berlin Olympic games as the perfect cover...for cold-blooded murder!

A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer facing execution meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing, each without knowing the other's secret.

When upper-class Parisian Charles Dupont and his family hire Tina and Michel as their servants, they have no idea that the domestics are in fact Tatiana, the Grand Duchess Petrovna, and her husband, Mikail, Prince Ouratieff. Recent exiles from the Russian Revolution, Tatiana and Mikail befriend the Dupont family, keeping their true identities a secret -- until one night when Soviet official Gorotchenko arrives for dinner.

Secret Service agents try to solve the theft of treasury banknote plates.

Unable to get work in her home country, Laurine Lynne (Beverly Roberts) travels to Vienna where her press agent, Joe Craig (Allyn Joslyn), convinces her to marry royalty. The lucky fellow is Prince Rupert (Patric Knowles), an impoverished nobleman now working as a waiter. Do the two of them fall in love despite this marriage of convenience?

A young man with a checkered past struggles to make good as a fireman.

An ambitious Mexican-American gets mixed up with the neurotic wife of his casino boss.

When Georgiana Summers learns that the woman who stole and married her husband is planning a romantic tryst with a new love, she hatches a giddy plot to expose the rendezvous and pay her back.

The first in RKO Pathe's series of "Traveling Salesman Comedies" has Louis John Bartels traveling to Mexico to sell his line of underwear. He garners the attention of a fair senorita which does not set well with the chief of a gang of bandits, and Bartels is soon seeking the USA/Mexico borderline.

T-Man Brass Bancroft goes undercover in a prison which has a secret counterfeit operation set up in the print shop.

Physician Carole Nelson, suspected of having ties to notorious gangster Joe Gurney, must prove her innocence or the Medical Board will revoke her license. When Gurney seeks her out for treatment after being shot, it could be the break Nelson needs. Now she has a chance to use her medical know-how to outwit Gurney and his goons and reestablish her professional reputation.

A Navy veteran with one leg fights to make himself a success.

In this sequel to Four Daughters, Ann struggles to move on after the death of her husband as she falls in love with Felix, but on the day of her engagement discovers that she carries Mickey's child.

Winfield College students rebel against a stodgy professor who won't permit "swing" music be played in their varsity show. They appeal to a big Broadway alumnus and have him direct their show. What they don't know is that this "star's" last three shows were flops.

Officer James O'Malley, a true believer in law and order, treats even the smallest offenses with the utmost seriousness. But O'Malley brings bad publicity to the force when his pigheaded ethics become the subject of a scathing news story, and he's subsequently relegated to traffic cop. While on the beat, he tickets impoverished family man John Phillips, unaware that his stubbornness will set off a series of devastating events for Phillips.

An ex-gambler hooks up with an old flame after his old habit resurfaces and drives off his wife.

In the days leading up to the Russian Revolution, Stephen Locke, a minor British diplomat in St Petersburg, falls in love with a Russian spy.

A con man and his partner inherit a dead gangster's precocious daughter.

Ambitious reporter Torchy Blane guides her policeman boyfriend to correctly pinpoint who shot the man she was interviewing.

In the slums, teenager Frankie Warren hangs out with a rowdy gang who one day knock him out in a fight. In court, the boys refuse to reveal who struck the knockout blow, and all are subsequently sentenced to a reformatory, cruelly run by two corrupt guards. New deputy commissioner Mark Braden arrives determined to change things, but despite the help of Frankie's sister, Mark's reform plans -- and Frankie's future -- may be sabotaged from within.

A Russian dance company agrees to stage the new ballet written by a vaudeville hoofer.

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.

Johnny tries hard to impress his girl, but she seems to be much more interested in movie stars.

Silent comedy about a poor country bumpkin who goes to Hollywood to make good.

A drama of the India Seas that has Hollingsworth Chance, a young American, tangled in court intrigue to, is put to the supreme test to save the girl he loves, Princess Geneva

A womanizing city man meets Tillie in the country. When he sees that her father has a very large bankroll for his workers, he persuades her to elope with him.

Charlie plays an actor who bungles several scenes and is kicked out. He returns convincingly dressed as a lady and charms the director, but Charlie never makes it into the film.

To show his girl how brave he is, Pug challenges the champion to a fight. Charlie referees, trying to avoid contact with the two monsters.

This early Chaplin film has him playing a character quite different from the Tramp for which he would become famous. He is a rich, upper-class gentleman whose romance is endangered when his girlfriend oversees him being embraced by a maid. Chaplin's romantic interest in this film, Minta Durfee, was the wife of fellow Keystone actor, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

Mabel tries to sell hot dogs at a car race, but isn't doing a very good job at it. She sets down the box of hot dogs and leaves them for a moment. Charlie finds them and gives them away to the hungry spectators at the track as Mabel frantically tries to find her lost box of hot dogs. Mabel finds out that Charlie has stolen them and sends the police after him. Chaos ensues.