麻豆社

**** Broadcast to mark 60 years since the death of Buster Keaton on 1st February 1960 aged 70. ****

Film historian David Robinson and writer David Thomson celebrate silent film star Buster Keaton and his movie machine.

As the cinema of silence gave way to the squawking of the talkies Buster Keaton offered up this effortless, immaculate vehicle for his stone faced genius.

The General is a perfect, hilarious and human work of mechanical precision and endless heroism. The tale of a man and his two true loves - a wonderous steam engine and his sweetheart - caught up in the meticulously realized struggle of the American Civil War.

Perhaps his greatest comedy it was also one of Keaton's most painful failures.

Producer: Mark Burman

First broadcast on 麻豆社 Radio 4 in December 1999.