Our Hospitality

With a good dose of everything that one expects from Keaton - slapstick, stunts, chases, rich visual detail, and much more - "Our Hospitality" is enjoyable to watch, and it has some especially good sequences. The plot idea, with Keaton as an innocent outsider becoming entangled in an old-fashioned family feud, works pretty well, although it relies on comic details to overcome some rather routine characters.

A short prologue explains the feud in which Buster will soon be involved, and then we see New Yorker Willie McKay (Keaton) called south to claim a family inheritance, which will plunge him into the middle of the feud. One of the movie's highlights is the train ride south, a wonderful sequence that almost upstages the rest of the film. It's a long, leisurely series of comic snippets that works beautifully both as a period piece and as terrifically inventive comedy. There aren't any spectacular gags, but an impressive collection of amusing incidents and carefully done detail, and it's well worth watching over again to catch it all.

The main part of the film features Buster romancing the pretty young woman he met on the train, while trying to avoid her brothers and father, who are trying to kill him. It's pretty good, but except for a few clever shots most of it is not up to the standard of the first part of the movie. It picks up near the end with a very good chase sequence that has some memorable moments and that brings everything to a climax.

Overall, this is a fine film, enjoyable and well worth watching.