A Brave Engineer: Buster Keaton's Last Ride

From 1920 to 1965, the great Buster Keaton made spectacular use of locomotives in his films. This video essay charts the course of his iconic cinematic career across the many tracks he rode along on screen: as a young man in the surge of his silent movie ascent in Our Hospitality, while making his masterpiece The General, and traversing the width of Canada on a railway speeder car as an old man in The Railrodder.

Cast

Buster Keaton

Self (Archival)

Roscoe Arbuckle

Self (Archival)

Marion Mack

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Sybil Seely

Self (Archival)

Joe Keaton

Self (Archival)

Natalie Talmadge

Self (Archival)

Joe Roberts

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Glen Cavender

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Red Skelton

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Gerald Potterton

Self (Archival)