The General (1926) is considered by many to be the greatest movie by silent comic Buster Keaton, and was, in fact, his own favorite of his films. Keaton was one of the top three silent comedians (along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd), and The General was made at the peak of his powers. Because Keaton worked with an independent producer (Joseph M. Schenck) and had a large budget, he enjoyed an unusual amount of artistic freedom. For this project, which he co-directed with Clyde Bruckman, Keaton lovingly depicted an actual incident from the Civil War, and simultaneously indulged in his personal love for trains. Nicknamed The Great Stone Face, Keaton's characteristic stoic nature is put to the test in a series of awe-inspiring slapstick stunts and sight gags involving enormous locomotives as they chase each other toward and away from enemy lines. Keaton often displayed a symbiotic relationship with inanimate objects in his films and here he has plenty to bounce off of, including cow-catchers, water tanks, pivoting canons, and all manner of rolling stock. Keaton was a natural athlete and visual dynamo (thanks to a rough-and-tumble show business persona dating back to his childhood), and in The General he performs a number of dangerous but entertaining comedy stunts. The General is also a masterpiece of film structure; the extended chase sequence covers the same ground twice and incidents in the first half are mirrored in the second half of the chase, with ingenious variations of the original gags. Although it is now considered one of the greatest films ever made, The General was a failure when first released. The silent era was winding down, and audiences were rejecting slapstick comedy, and the critics felt the film was slow and repetitious. It took decades for the popular and critical reaction to catch up to Keaton's masterpiece, but by that time it was too late for Buster; the box-office failure of the film helped lead to Keaton's loss of artistic freedom and a long personal decline. Fortunately, he lived to enjoy a renewed reputation and The General was the crown jewel of that revival.