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One hundred years to the day. Buster Keaton's The General premiered in New York on February 5, 1927, and Opus 327 marks the centennial on the exact date with a screening the way silent films were meant to be experienced, on a big screen with a live organist.
Widely hailed as the crowning comedy of the silent era, The General stars Keaton as Johnnie Gray, a Southern railroad engineer chasing a stolen locomotive, and the girl aboard it, straight through enemy lines. Keaton performed his own famously dangerous stunts aboard real moving trains, and a century later the film's blend of daredevil spectacle and perfect deadpan still leaves audiences gasping and laughing in the same breath. A flop on its first release, it is now regarded as Keaton's masterpiece and ranks among the greatest films ever made.
At the Opus 327 console is Dennis Scott, house organist of Chicago's historic Music Box Theatre, where he has accompanied silent films since 1992, and the official organist of the International Buster Keaton Society. There may be no one better suited to bring a Keaton picture roaring to life, and he'll do it on St. Luke's own 1922 E.M. Skinner organ, an instrument only five years older than the film itself. Scott will introduce the evening with a few words on the film and the lost art of live accompaniment before the lights go down.