Our Hospitality
For last weeks cinema visit I tried something completely different - a silent movie. It’s part of an unusual season at the NFT, Out of the Shadows - 50 Cinematic Masterpieces. I’ve always been more of a Keaton fan than Chaplin, but Harold Lloyd still wins my favourite silent comedian prize. I wistfully recall rushing home from school to see a double bill of Lloyd two reelers on BBC2, armed with a mug of weak squash and packet of jammie dodgers. Ah, those were the days…….
In 19th century gold rush country, a deep feud develops between two families - the Canfield’s and the McKay’s. Keaton (one of the McKays) inherits the old family home which his mother fled with him as a baby many years before, after the dramatic murder of his father. En route back to his birthplace, he meets and falls for a young lady (yes, she turns out to be a Canfield) and then learns the value of ‘Our Hospitality’ as it is not permitted to kill a McCay whilst a guest in a Canfield’s (or any other) Southern Gentleman’s residence. The plot was loosely inspired by the real life Hatfield-McCoy feud which was in vogue at the time.
This was great fun, sometimes sitting through movies like this can be a chore (I recently got through all three hours of ‘Intolerance‘ which was hard work) but this was a genuinely funny, entertaining and engaging picture, despite it’s 80 year vintage. You can really see the development of comedy on a broader scale, as many of the gags and situations have been repeated ad nauseum in cinema, TV and on the stage over the years - I think Keaton invented the deadpan, ‘ knowing wink’ to camera which for me is echoed in Will E Coyote’s resigned face as he falls another 10,000 feet from the Arizona mountains, another hair brained scheme foiled by the elusive Road Runner.
There is a quite simply breathtaking stunt toward the end of the film when a rope secured Keaton swings to snatch his beloved away from certain death as she plummets over a waterfall - this got a round of applause as we all knew this was done in-camera, with serious risk to life and limb - no CGI in those days mister. I can’t find a link for it via the usual methods, I’ll try to track it down…
Also heartwarming was the laughter of the half dozen or so kids that were also present in the audience. They certainly weren’t bored and their enjoyment I think encouraged the adults in the auditorium to be a bit more appreciative of the film. There, you see even a jaded old cynic like me can occasionally be moved by the laughter of a child. What’s next weeks scheduled film I hear you ask? Oh, it’s a little number called ’The Exterminating Angel’…..
Leave a Reply