The General

On the data. One film, and its failure cost Keaton his career. It lost money in 1926 and reviews were poor. On the strength of that failure Keaton gave up his own studio and signed with MGM, which took creative control away from him. He described that decision afterwards as the worst of his life. The bridge collapse is real. A locomotive was driven onto a burning trestle and dropped into the Row River in Oregon. It was the most expensive single shot of the silent era and the wreck lay in the river as a local attraction until it was salvaged for scrap during the Second World War. It is based on a real event, the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862, and Keaton kept closely to the historical account except for making his character a Confederate, which is one reason for its poor reception in the north. Keaton performed everything himself, including sitting on the connecting rod of a moving locomotive. It is now routinely named among the greatest films ever made.

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