Reception
The General on its initial release fared poorly in both box office and critical reaction. Variety reported of a theater in which it played, "after four weeks of record business with 'Flesh and the Devil', looks as though it were virtually going to starve to death this week." It goes on to say that The General is "far from funny" and that "it is a flop." New York Times reviewer Mordaunt Hall stated, "The production itself is singularly well mounted, but the fun is not exactly plentiful", and "This is by no means so good as Mr. Keaton's previous efforts." The Los Angeles Times reported that the picture is "neither straight comedy nor is it altogether thrilling drama" and goes on to state that the picture "drags terribly with a long and tiresome chase of one engine by another." It was one of Keaton's worst pictures at the box office.
Keaton considered it to be the best of all his movies. Audiences and critics would later agree with him, and it is now considered a major classic of the silent era.
In 1989, The General was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It made it into the registry in the first year it was enacted, along with such films as The Best Years of Our Lives, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Sunset Blvd.
In a 2002 poll of critics and filmmakers on the best films ever made, critic Roger Ebert listed it on his top 10. It is also on his list of Great Movies. It was ranked number 1 in a list of the 100 greatest films of the silent era by the website silentera.com.
U.S. film distributor Kino International released the film on Blu-ray Disc in November 2009. This is the first American release of a silent feature film for the High Definition video medium. The Blu-ray edition replicates the same extra features of Kino's 2008 "The Ultimate 2-Disc Edition" on DVD, including the choice of three different orchestral scores as soundtrack.
American Film Institute recognition
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs #18
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) #18
Read more about this topic: The General (1926 film)
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