Saw Our Hospitality, a slightly dusty old Buster Keaton film about a New York man (Keaton) who returns to his ancestral Appalachian home and unwittingly into an ancient feud between his family and the Canfields. The film is divided into two parts: getting there and then surviving the rivalry. It's fairly funny in a quaint, pokey kind of way. I laughed a few times, but only at strange things.
The first half was really great, with lots of gags about how small New York was back then and the horrible oldness and ricketyness of their trains. There's some great gags with a tiny train following the tracks as they snake around a grazing donkey or over a fallen log. Looney Tunes level creativity and humor - I liked it.
The second half climaxes in a waterfall rescue that's not very funny of course, but is quite impressive. Keaton gets a rope around his middle and uses it to swing and be swung by all kinds of objects. Keaton has this manner of taking a simple encumbrance and milking it for all kinds of bizarre physical humor. It's so rigorous, it feels almost scientific.
Anyway, an alright film. Not quite gripping enough to keep my attention all the way through, but perhaps this is more of an indictment of me than of the movie. Solid flick!
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