People are voting emotionally.

Disappointment for a huge fan!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Copyright 20 November 1923 by Joseph M. Schenck Productions. Released through Metro Pictures. U.S. release: 19 November 1923. New York opening at the Rialto: 9 December 1923. 7 reels. 6,220 feet. Runs 69 minutes when projected at sound speed; 74 minutes at recommended speed. (And I'm pleased to say that the video copy, though somewhat light in shading and lacking in contrast, runs the full 74).SYNOPSIS: A re-telling of what could hopefully have been the final chapter of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, set in the period 1810-1831. COMMENT: An absolute must-see delight for all of us train buffs, in which respect it resembles a companion piece to The General (1926), Our Hospitality is also a wonderful take on the manners and mores of the Old South. So, even if you don't particularly enjoy the picture's wondrously accurate recreation of Stevenson's "Rocket" and all the glorious gag variations so inventively worked into an increasingly nonsensical pattern on the inward train journey to Hospitality country, you must thrill to the irrepressible displays of Keaton's comic genius (not to mention his death-defying acrobatic skills), once that land of golden romance is reached.Assisting Buster is a well-nigh faultless cast of time-tested players led by Keaton's own father and the lovely Natalie Talmadge. Plus Keaton's regular heavy, Joe Roberts.OTHER VIEWS: After an unusually dramatic and moodily atmospheric start, this film settles down into hilarious Keaton territory once the heir-apparent sets out to claim the old family estate. The gags become progressively more daredevil as well as more breathtakingly surrealistic, ending in a wonderful "catch" as Buster rescues his real-life wife from the rapids... If you love The General, you'll dote on Our Hospitality. I think it's the funnier and far more inventive film.

Buster Keaton perfectly showcases his ability to twist genres in this all time comedy class, as he turns the premise of a Hitchcockian thriller into a riotous romp that is both clever and silly. Filled with some of Keaton's finest stunts, and some surprisingly intense (but also hilarious) climactic action/chase scenes, "Our Hospitality" is a simple and sweet joyride. It is a film made with love and care, as Keaton shows his passion for filmmaking with some of his breathtaking and memorable stunts. It takes real dedication to write, direct, and star in your own film-on top of doing dangerous stunts that depend entirely on timing. This is why Buster Keaton is one of my idols, he did some much hard work and still managed to make some damn great movies!

This feature sees Buster Keaton as a young man who returns to the old South to claim an estate, only to discover that his family has been one of the participants in a Hatfield-McCoy style feud (here they are the Canfields and McKays), and the other side still wants to kill him. It's a good, solid comedy, and as always showcases a lot of great conceptual comedy and stunts, all performed by the "Great Stone Face" in a way that makes you marvel. It's hard to imagine anyone else quite coming up with the horse with the umbrella that looks like a woman from behind, the daisy-chain falling down the cliff of the two men tied by a rope, or the way the rear cars of the train end up in front of the engine. Often it's the uniqueness of this kind of humour that really makes Keaton's film's stand out.A lot of the jokes in this film, especially in the earlier parts, revolve around making fun of the past simply for being the past (central Manhattan used to be less developed, &c). As a viewer in 2009 I can't help but think that if I were as indulgent of decades past as this film is, I would probably not be watching it. Still there is a lot of material here and some of it works very well (I love the shifting of the train track itself when the mule won't get out of the way).The story of the film is a good one, but the humour doesn't seem to flow quite so naturally from it as in other Keaton films, with the notable exception of the sequences in which Buster must stay inside the house in order to protect his life. It actually seems to be funnier on digressions, such as the scene of Buster fishing in the vicinity of a soon-to-be-demolished dam.So while the laughs aren't one-hundred-per-cent wall-to-wall here, it's certainly, a funny, satisfying, well-made film, with the impressively perilous action-comedy sequences being a highlight for me.

Buster Keaton's exceptional silent film is not just about a young man who falls for the wrong girl, nor is it just an exercise in the many ways that film can become an art form as well as entertainment, it is in more ways than one a nostalgic look back to a period of history when this country was fiddling with pieces of invention that would soon become many things we take for granted today. The scene where Keaton is riding a pedal-less bicycle shows his great comic sense as well as where the country was in that time. There is also a funny sequence involving a train, which is for the most part, simply some carriages hooked to each other and pulled by a simple wood-burning engine.All these scenes were Keaton's idea, in my opinion, to show the audience how far America had come since those days. The same could also be true in terms of the storyline, which centers around feuding and bitter hatred for no apparent reason. Indeed, one title card reads that in those days, men killed other men simply because they grew up hating that family. Here, Keaton is the rule-breaker, as he is in many of his other films. His romance with the girl is sweet and comical and how he alludes being killed by her feuding father and brothers can be suspenseful but is also funny as well.If you say you aren't a silent film fan, I encourage you to check this one out. The music is intriguing and enjoyable and Keaton is wonderful the whole time all the while showing the possibilities of film that he regrettably never got a hold of.