Our Hospitality (1923)
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Our Hospitality Movie Review
Our Hospitality is a 1923 silent comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton. It’s not among his best movies, but it does have its highly memorable sequences.
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“I came a long way to kill him
and I’m going to do it tonight!“
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A man returns to his Appalachian homestead. On the trip, he falls for a young woman. The only problem is her family has vowed to kill every member of his family. This story obviously served as a parody of the famous real-life Hatfield-McCoy feud. The romantic elements worked as the romance was quite strong and the performance from Natalie Talmadge was fantastic. She was so charming in the role. But other than those romantic touches the story left a lot to be desired and it was just an excuse to include some high stakes and memorable gags.
My main issue with this movie is that it’s not really a comedy. It’s much more an action adventure flick than it is your standard comedy feature, being very much in line with Keaton’s overrated movie ‘The General’. There are some strong slapstick moments to be had here and the situational comedy with this feuding families all acting crazy was quite amusing as well, but those moments were too few and far between.
The first half is pretty slow and less memorable than the second half, which was pretty much an action spectacle. That final scene on the river with the rapids was so breathtaking. It is to be seen to be believed. The movie has aged incredibly well because of those iconic action set pieces that are still thrilling to watch to this day. Some of the stunts were so crazy that the crew was endangered doing them, which led to such an authentic movie with true stakes.
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Our Hospitality is also gorgeously shot as its cinematography is incredibly modern, polished and particularly adept at capturing every single action moment from all angles, making for a true visual feast. The score was also strong and the acting is excellent across the board with Keaton being as confident as always at both comedy and stunts. I just wish that the dialogue, characterization and the actual plot were better.
What Our Hospitality lacks in characterization and script it more than compensates with gorgeous, polished cinematography, excellent acting across the board and phenomenal action set pieces. The final action sequence was truly breathtaking and still thrilling to this day. This Buster Keaton vehicle is definitely more an action than a comedy flick for better and for worse, but in terms of sheer blockbuster spectacle it delivered in spades.
My Rating – 4
This is the second film in my th3ee series where I will cover one film per decade that is having an anniversary this year, from 1913 to 2013. Next up is the year 1933 where I chose Footlight Parade. Keep an eye on that one as well.
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