Turner Classic Movies describes Our Hospitality as a "silent film for which no apologies need be made to modern viewers.
The brother offers to show him the way, but stops at every shop in search of a pistol to shoot the unsuspecting Willie.
Returning home, they see Willie and Virginia embracing, Joseph Canfield furiously rushes into the room, gun in hand.
Seeing a hanging "love thy neighbor" sampler, the father decides to bless the union and end the feud.
[2]He had art director Fred Grabourne build fully functional replicas of trains with attention to every detail of their authenticity.
However, Keaton chose not to use the early US DeWitt Clinton engine and instead had Grabourne build a replica of Stephenson's Rocket because he thought it looked funnier.
Keaton cast his wife Natalie Talmadge in the lead role of Virginia, directing her to play her part as an old fashioned southern belle as well as an innocent schoolgirl.
The cast and 20-person crew arrived in Truckee in July 1923, along with the fully functional locomotive, three railroad passenger cars, 30 set pieces and enough building material for several miles of train track.
As was normal for a Keaton production, the cast and crew often stopped shooting to play baseball or fish for Truckee salmon and trout when the opportunities arose.
[5] Our Hospitality is the only film to feature three generations of the Keaton family: Buster, his father Joe, and his infant son.
In 2018, the Dallas Chamber Symphony commissioned composer Scott Glasgow to write a musical score for Our Hospitality, which premiered during a concert screening at Moody Performance Hall on October 13, 2018 with Richard McKay conducting.
[7] Keaton's previous film Three Ages was released while Our Hospitality was in post-production and was a big hit in both the US and Europe, breaking box office records in some cities.
[5] Our Hospitality has remained one of Keaton's acclaimed works, holding an average rating of 9.0 at Rotten Tomatoes with 96% positive reviews.
[11]Dave Kehr wrote: "With this work, Keaton began to display a dramatic sense to complement his comic sensibility—like The General, it is built with the integrity of a high-adventure story.
Of course, Keaton still finds room for his inimitable sight gags and beloved gadgets, here including an early steam locomotive that pulls its carriage train up and down the hills of Pennsylvania with a lovely reptilian grace.
It isn't his fastest, funniest or most dazzlingly inventive picture, but it is my sentimental favorite because of its serene, nostalgic beauty—a vision of a halcyon world (America, circa 1830) that was already, of course, charmingly old-fashioned by 1923 standards.
"Our Hospitality" (co-directed by Keaton and Jack Blystone) displays some magnificent pictorial compositions, worthy of John Ford... What is first viewed through the frame is not always what it appears to be.