my favorite movies of 1926:

(1) The General

(2) Ménilmontant

favorite of 1926:

The General

(Buster Keaton, Marion Mack. Directed by Keaton, Clyde Bruckman.)

Wikipedia explains that this movie was such a flop at the time that MGM punished Buster Keaton by taking away his independence — but today it’s considered his greatest achievement. Orson Welles said The General was “the greatest comedy” and “perhaps the greatest film ever made.” 

Ebert summed up the movie:

“The General” is an epic of silent comedy, one of the most expensive films of its time, including an accurate historical recreation of a Civil War episode, hundreds of extras, dangerous stunt sequences, and an actual locomotive falling from a burning bridge into a gorge far below. It was inspired by a real event; the screenplay was based on the book “The Great Locomotive Chase,” written by William Pittenger, the engineer who was involved.

As the film opens, war has been declared and Johnny Gray (Keaton) has been turned down by a rebel enlisting officer (he is more valuable as an engineer, although nobody explains that to him). “I don’t want you to speak to me again until you are in uniform,” Annabelle [Marion Mack] declares. Time passes. Johnny is the engineer of the General, a Southern locomotive. The train is stolen by Union spies, and Johnny chases it on foot, by sidecar, by bicycle and finally with another locomotive, the Texas. Then the two sides switch trains, and the chase continues in reverse. Annabelle was a passenger on the stolen train [and] becomes a prisoner of the Union troops. …

It would seem logically difficult to have much of a chase involving trains, since they must remain on tracks, and so one must forever be behind the other one — right? Keaton defies logic with one ingenious silent comic sequence after another, and it is important to note that he never used a double and did all of his own stunts, even very dangerous ones, with a calm acrobatic grace. The train’s obvious limitations provide him with ideas. …

You can watch the whole thing here (in the public domain):

 

2nd favorite of 1926:

Ménilmontant

[French]

(Nadia Sibirskaïa, Yolande Beaulieu, Guy Belmont. Directed by Dimitri Kirsanoff.)

It’s hard to believe this short movie with dream-like editing and subtle emotion came out as long ago as 1926. With no words either spoken or written, the movie can sometimes be hard to follow, especially as it begins with a disorienting scene of sudden violence. Still, Pauline Kael said it was her favorite movie ever. Another critic, Ed Howard, said:

Ménilmontant is a masterpiece of silent cinema, taking a simple melodramatic plot and transforming it into a deeply affecting work of art with the sheer force of the poetic, intense visuals that Kirsanoff uses to tell his story. The film follows a pair of sisters who leave the country for the city after their parents are slaughtered in a mysterious axe murder. Unusually for the time, there are no intertitles, so the plot is communicated entirely with imagery. This economical storytelling gives the film a lean, stripped-down aesthetic that makes it seem eminently modern.

Click here for the full list of my favorite movie(s) of each year from 1920 to 2020.