Our Hospitality (1923)

It feels almost heretical to call a Buster Keaton film boring, but here we are, and I am not going to lie to protect a legend's reputation. Our Hospitality is one of his early features, and where his best work is a beautiful machine with no wasted parts, every gag feeding the next, this one simply sits there for long stretches, waiting for something to happen. Even the great ones have to find their footing, and this is Keaton still looking for his.

The premise has real promise, which is what makes the sluggishness so frustrating. Drawn from a real Southern family feud, it follows his character back to his ancestral home, where he walks straight into a generations-old blood grudge, saved only by an old code of hospitality: a guest cannot be harmed while he is under your roof. So the family who want him dead are forced to keep him alive and comfortable as long as he stays for dinner, and he, realising this, simply refuses to leave. That is a wonderful engine for a comedy, a man weaponising good manners to stay breathing. But the film barely revs it. Instead of tightening that screw, it meanders, padding out the run time with a laborious opening act and repetitive gags that test your patience more than they tickle it. Even by the generous standards of 1923, it drags.

When the stunts finally arrive, you remember exactly who you are watching. There is a waterfall rescue, Keaton swinging out on a rope to snatch someone from the lip of the falls, that is genuinely breathtaking, and a runaway sequence on a primitive train that is staged with the fearless, real-bodies-in-real-danger commitment that made his name. For a few minutes the film catches fire and you see the genius that would soon produce his masterpieces. The trouble is those moments are marooned. They are islands of brilliance stranded in a sea of monotony, and around them Keaton's usual physical invention keeps getting swapped out for passive observation, the great stone face just watching things happen.

The attempt at gentle social satire, poking fun at the absurdity of Southern hospitality codes, never quite clicks either, because the tone cannot decide whether it is a farce or a story with real peril, and commits to neither. Set beside The General or Sherlock Jr, films with rhythm, stakes and not an ounce of fat, this plays like a distant warm-up act, a talented artist rehearsing in public. Two stars. Worth seeking out for the history and for those two extraordinary set pieces, but as an actual evening's entertainment it is a sluggish, uneven watch, and proof that even the legends needed time to find their stride.

Rating: ★★  | Year: 1923  | Watched: 2026-04-19

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More with Buster Keaton: The General (1926) · The Navigator (1924) · Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) · Sherlock Jr. (1924)
More from the 1920s: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · The Docks of New York (1928) · A Throw of Dice (1929)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
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