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.
The film runs almost entirely on motion: a chase on rails that builds scene by scene without ever feeling frantic. Keaton plays it with a stone face and lets the stunts do the talking, with gags that come from precise mechanics and timing. There is also an unusual eye for composition, and some battle scenes look like period photographs.
Good for you if you like slapstick with real physical risk and want to give silent film a try.
Written with AI, based on TMDb data.