Day: July 24, 2025
Behind Enemy Lines
Buster Keaton‘s The General was inspired by the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862. The story was adapted from William Pittenger‘s 1889 memoir “The Great Locomotive Chase.”
A less dazzling, non-comedic but respectably sturdy retelling of the tale arrived with Walt Disney‘s The Great Locomotive Chase (’56), costarring Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter. It was directed by Francis T. Lyon and shot by Charles Boyle with a 2.39:1 aspect ratio.
I’ve seen the Disney version three or four times and it’s not half bad. Parker and Hunter are excellent; ditto costars Jeff York, John Lupton, Kenneth Tobey and Slim Pickens.
The Disney film didn’t do as well commercially as hoped, probably due to the fact that it went with a downer ending. Parker’s character, Union spy and train hijacker James J. Andrews, ends up captured and hanged.
Keaton Used Only One Camera Perspective For “General” Bridge Collapse Scene?
For the staggering locomotive bridge collapse scene in Buster Keaton‘s The General, which happened in Cottage Grove, Oregon on 7.23.26, somewhere between three and six cameras were rolling.
One portion of the film’s Wiki page says that “the crew brought three 35 mm cameras with them from Los Angeles”; another passage reports that “Keaton used six cameras for the train wreck scene.”
And yet the scene contains only one shot of the actual collapse and kersplash — not even one alternate angle, although there should have been at least two with at least three 35mm cameras available. (And possibly even six.)
What was Keaton thinking?
If I’d been in charge of the shoot I would’ve had an insulated, gelatin water-proofed, rubber-encased 16mm camera (such cameras were being sold as of 1923) mounted and running inside the train’s engine cabin, and I certainly would’ve had another 16mm camera mounted and shooting from the right-side base of the bridge, just in front of where the engine was due to crash and splash.
With these two extra vantage points the final sequence would have been twice as astounding. But for some curious reason Keaton, who was nothing if not ambitious and energetic in his usual approach to directing stunts and action sequences, opted for only one shot and a master one at that, captured by a tripod-mounted camera located 250 or 300 feet away.
The genius-level Keaton starred, produced and co-directed The General. He was 31 at the time.
24 years later Keaton performed a cameo (more or less playing himself) in Billy Wilder‘s Sunset Boulevard. The poor guy was only 55 years old, but easily looked 65. Alcohol had taken a toll.
“‘Brokeback Mountain’ on Sedatives”
How many underwhelming or dud-level Paul Mescal performances will it take to convince the HE cognoscenti that I’ve been right about this mook all along? The coup de grace, I’m presuming, will be delivered by Mescal’s Paul McCartney performance in Sam Mendes‘ Beatles quartet.
Nilsson: “I Guess A Cruel Lord Must Be in New York City”
“New York City today is optimized for two [kinds of] people. It’s optimized for really rich guys in their 40s and 50s, and for really hot women in their 20s and 30s. And for nearly everyone else, it’a a soul-crushing experience. If you are not in one of those two demographics, do not move to New York City. For it is capitalism meets Darwin meets Three’s Company and I Dream of Jeannie meets reality TV.” — Scott Galloway.
Manhattan-residing friendo: “Pretty damn accurate! Except NYC is also welcoming to hot finance guys in their 20s and 30s.”
I lived in Manhattan for six years, between the spring of ’78 and the early summer of ’83. I lived in five (5) small but livable apartments on Sullivan Street, West 4th Street, Bank Street (right across from HB Studios), West 76th Street near Amsterdam, and West 99th west of Broadway. I was never flush, but I was able live a spunky, flavorful, often exciting life supplanted by elite screenings, paid-for parties and occasional bar sippings, comped tickets to B’way plays, clubs and downtown club visits. I wasn’t deliriously ecstatic about everything, but I was certainly what most of us would call moderately happy. And oh, the women back then…
Life was actually pretty great at times, looking back, but a youngish journalist earning a moderate 2025 salary couldn’t possibly have fun today in NYC the way I did 40-plus years ago.