Our Hospitality



Buster Keaton manages to mine humor from the late-nineteenth-century Hatfield-McCoy feud, playing a New Yorker who heads south to claim an inheritance, only to find that the father and brothers of the girl who invited him to dinner have sworn to kill him. Fortunately, he's perfectly safe as long as he's a guest under their roof...


 * An Aesop: An embroidered sampler that reads "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is featured prominently in the prologue and at the conclusion.
 * Aside Glance: Willie stares directly into the camera just before he's yanked off a ledge.
 * California Doubling: Actually, California and Oregon doubling for, presumably, Virginia, the site of the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
 * Cool Train: A line of coaches pulled by a replica of the 1829 Stephenson's Rocket.
 * Disguised in Drag: One method Willie uses in an attempt to escape the Canfields.
 * Elopement: How the feud finally ends.
 * Evil Is Bigger: All three Canfield men tower over Buster's Willie McKay.
 * Expy: The Canfield-McKay antipathy is obviously meant to evoke the legendary Hatfield-McCoy feud.
 * Feuding Families: The mainspring of the plot. We never find out what started it.
 * Giant Wall of Watery Doom: Subverted, as the waterfall created by the sudden flood saves Willie's life.
 * Imagine Spot: Willie's visions of a gracious plantation home.
 * Inevitable Waterfall: The site of the movie's climax.
 * It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Played straight in the prologue.
 * Literal Cliff Hanger: Several.
 * Miniature Effects: Used for Willie's visions and the demolition of a dam.
 * Never Recycle a Building: Apparently the McKay home was left untenanted after the remaning family fled.
 * Nice Hat: Willie at first sports a period accurate (and very cool) flared top hat, then switches to Buster's signature flat hat.
 * Real Life Relative: The Girl is played by Buster's then-wife, Natalie Talmadge. Furthermore, Buster cast his father as the high-kicking train engineer, and Buster's first son, James (credited as "Buster Keaton, Jr."), portrays the infant Willie.
 * Sacred Hospitality: Why the Canfield patriarch stops his sons from killing Willie when he (unaware of his hosts' identity) comes for dinner.
 * Soft Water: How Willie and one of the Canfield boys survive falling hundreds of feet off a cliff.
 * Southern Belle: The Girl
 * Star-Crossed Lovers: Alas, that nice girl who Willie met on the train is a Canfield.
 * Stop-Motion Lighting: The only illumination for the pistol fight between Willie McKay's father and Joseph Canfield's brother comes from lightning and the muzzle flashes from their guns.
 * Sweet Home Alabama: The exact location is not specified (the prologue title refers to "certain sections of the United States"), but we are clearly Down South (though not quite in the Deep South).
 * Title Drop: "He'll never forget our hospitality," the senior Canfield says ominously (via title card) on learning his daughter's invited the man who turns out to be Willie over for dinner.
 * Unexpected Inheritance: What sends Willie south.
 * What a Drag: Willie is dragged by the train.