Top 250 Challenge: 168

The General (1927)
Number 141 on IMDb's Top 250

Johnnie Gray (Buster Keaton) has two loves in his life: his engine and his girl, Annabelle Lee. The War Between the States begins with an attack on Fort Sumter, and Johnnie is the first in line at the recruitment office. But the enlisting officer rejects him (not telling him the reason: he is more valuable to the South as an engineer). Annabelle believes he didn't even try to enlist, and she refuses to even speak to him until he is in uniform. Time passes and Union spies hatch a plot involving Johnnie's engine, The General. Not only do they steal The General while Johnnie and the passengers are off the train having dinner, but they kidnap Annabelle who was still on board. Johnnie pursues The General in another engine, The Texas. Through various mishaps he becomes the Unionists' sole pursuer. When the Unionists discover the train chasing them has only one man aboard, the long pursuit ends, and Johnnie barely escapes with his life. Johnnie is now behind enemy lines. He wanders the forest during a rainstorm then discovers a house, which he breaks into, grabbing what food he can. It turns out the Unionists who stole The General are using the house as a base of operations. While hiding under the dinner table, Johnnie learns the details of their next plot against the Confederates. More importantly, he discovers they have Annabelle Lee, whom he had never guessed was still on The General when it was taken. Johnnie manages to escape with Annabelle and take back The General. Hilarity ensues. Now the Unionists are pursuing Johnnie, but if he and Annabelle can outrace them, they can warn the Confederates of the Union's latest plan.

Trivia: Based on a true incident during the Civil War. A group of Union spies, both soldiers and civilians, stole a Confederate train, the General, in hopes of disrupting Confederate rail lines. As in the film, the conductor of the train ended up chasing after the train thieves on foot. The Union spies, however, failed in their mission and were captured. A few were executed while others were traded in a prisoner exchange. The survivors of the mission were awarded the first Congressional Medals of Honor. In the scenes with the opposing armies marching, Buster Keaton had the extras (which included Oregon National Guard troops) wear the uniforms of the Confederacy and march in one direction past the camera, then he had them change uniforms to the Union blue and had them march past the camera in the other direction. The scene in which The Texas crashes through the bridge was the single most expensive shot of the entire silent movie era. The Texas itself remained in the river until WWII, when it was salvaged for scrap iron.

This was a cool movie to watch. Made in 1927, 90% of the movie is shot on and around two moving locomotives (no CGI effects! Amazing) with Buster Keaton doing his own stunts, which were spectacular in their own right. And it all led up to the most amazing shot of the movie, the death of The Texas, when they drove The Texas right over the collapsing river bridge. Talk about having only one shot at a scene, the production company didn't even have enough money to remove the engine from the river and just left it there. There is no way a movie today could do the same thing with computer special effects and get the same reaction.