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In a Kentuckian village, the Canflelds and the McKays had a blood feud
ongoing for many decades - but when her husband (Edward Coxen) was shot in
a duel with a Canfield (whom he shot as well), the last Mrs McKay (Jean
Dumas) moved to New York with her son Will (Buster Keaton jr) in hopes to
leave the blood feud behind her for good. In 1830 though, Will, now a
grown man (and played by Buster Keaton) goes back to Kentucky to claim his
inheritance. He has to find out though that his inheritance is nothing
else than a shack on the verge of caving in. So the last thing to do
before returning to New York is accepting the invitation to dinner by a
girl (Natalie Talmadge) he has met on the train - and it's only when he's
already in the house of the girl and her family (her fathr played by Joe
Roberts, her brothers played by Ralph Bushman and Craig Ward) that he
realizes his hosts are the Canfields who are hell-bent on shooting every
McKay who crosses their way - though not inside their four walls, as they
value hospitality over everything. So at first Will tries to stay inside
the house as long as possible, then he makes a daring escape in drag on
horseback, over some cliffs, and finally down some rapids tied to a log.
The Canfield girl, who doesn't share her family's hatred for the McKays,
makes a daring attempt to save him from the river he's floating down, but
in the end has to saved by Will instead from falling down a waterfall ... In
the evening, Pa Canfield and his sons return from their unsuccessful hunt
for the last of the McKays, only to find him in their daughter's arms. But
when they learn the two of them have just married, they decide to put an
end to the silly blood feud. The second feature film by Buster
Keaton after The Three Ages is
very much an improvement over the first film (which wasn't exactly bad to
begin with), and his first masterpiece in the feature format: Of course
the film is a series of breathtaking slapstick routines/stunts (first and
foremost of course the waterfall-sequence) and sight gags (the trainride
in an early 19th century train is a hoot by itself), but all in the
service of a story that's simple enough to be easy to follow but also
complex enough to house a plethora of story-driven gags, and it's the
perfect vehicle for a comic/actor of Buster Keaton's considerable talents. Highest
recommendation.
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