"Our Hospitality" Review

 

by Daniel White

When first encountered in Our Hospitality (1923), Buster Keaton is leaving the post office. Wearing a too-tall top hat, he mounts a wooden bicycle without pedals and blithely rides away. Paradoxically, he cuts an absurd figure of extreme dignity. Co-directed with Jack Blystone, it's Keaton's third feature-length film but the first to contain many of the ingredients found in subsequent Keaton productions. A wayward locomotive, set-ups that are equal parts funny AND treacherous, and of course, Keaton's cinematic alter ego. Stoic, determined, seemingly oblivious to life's challenges, he calmly trudges forward.

Three Ages (1923), his previous movie, introduced us to the Keaton character, but primarily a satire, concerned with parody, it's not quite a total Keatonesque affair. Our Hospitality is his official launch in full length flickers.

A send-up of the Hatfield-McCoy, two families-a-feudin' saga, Keaton plays Willie McKay. Sent east by his mother after the murder of his father by sworn enemies, the Canfields, Willie decides to return as an adult to reclaim his pappy's property. Traveling by rail, he meets a young lady (Keaton's wife, Natalie Talmadge), whom he quickly starts a courtin'. Of course, unknown to either, she's a Canfield, bound for her homestead.

The film is fairly simple, with several extended comic outings. The first is the train ride west, with Keaton's own father, Joe, playing the conductor. Next, you have Keaton dining with his intended's hostile father and brothers. Overhearing them say they won't kill him as long as he's their guest, Buster humorously contrives to remain under their roof. Finally, he finds himself adrift on a river, helplessly floating along. Over rapids, unwittingly approaching dangerous falls, he soon must save himself and his newfound lady friend.

Never sacrificing story for sight gags, the movie is a self-contained tale that hums along sweetly to its foregone but satisfying conclusion. Distributed by Metro Pictures Corporation, with Buster Keaton Jr. appearing briefly in the prologue, Our Hospitality is currently available on YouTube.