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Johnnie often proves to be extremely well-coordinated in performing
actions. For instance, when he brains the Union troops in the cab of The
General, as he recaptures the train, he swings the board over his shoulder
with terrific power, knocking the Union general cold; then, in a continuous
forward motion, he pushes a staff officer from the engine; and, then, he
kicks up backwards, sending a soldier hurling out the screen-right side of the
engine.
Johnnie s catching and reversing of The General just prior to the near col-
lision of the three trains involves a similar degree of deftness. As Johnnie labors
to escape from his Union pursuers in order to warn the Southerners of the
impending attack, his actions become more and more accomplished. He suc-
ceeds, virtually single-handedly, in carrying out the full gambit of delaying
techniques that required an entire crew of Union spies to execute against him
 and this while running the train almost without help. An astute learner,
Johnnie pushes the back of a boxcar on the track to block the Union pursuit
and, later, he releases a boxcar to block the Union advance. But this is really
primarily imitation. He also does the Union pranksters one better when per-
forming his own variation of the track-switching routine; Johnnie bends the
tracks into their switched position by pulling the track with his engine, thus
jamming the track in the wrong direction so that repairing the damage and
getting on the right track again become quite challenging.
The speed, flexibility, and savvy of the kinds of actions described above
contrast strongly with Keaton s automatism gags. Whereas those gags
involved an insensitivity and lack of responsiveness to the environment,
these actions seem to show a high degree of awareness of the character s sur-
roundings. These incidents also seem to correspond to a class of gags that
we have not yet spoken of, namely, gags that involve the character s canny
manipulation of the available environment. Such gags represent successful
instances of adaptation whereas the automatism gags imply maladaptation.
52 Themes of The General
An early example of a successful adaptation gag occurs at the induction
center when Johnnie lowers his hat over his face so that he can attempt to
enlist a second time. Keaton nicely shoots this gag from the induction
officer s point of view so that the viewer can literally see how the angle of
the hat and the manner in which Johnnie holds his head succeed in obscur-
ing his identity. This ruse does, in fact, not entirely succeed because a
Southern general eventually sees through Johnnie s ploy; yet the ploy is suc-
cessful with its initial mark.
Later examples of these successful adaptations tend to be involved with
physical tasks. A famous instance of this occurs when Johnnie sees a railroad
tie strewn on the tracks in front of him. The Union spies have thrown it there
hoping to derail him. Johnnie slows The Texas down and runs along the side
of the engine. Carefully, he slides down the cowcatcher of his engine, runs
to the tie, and with much difficulty, pulls it off the track. Unfortunately, he
has not worked fast enough. The Texas has inched up behind him while he
struggled with the tie. By the time he lifts it, The Texas crowds up behind
him, sweeps him off his feet, and he falls on top of the cowcatcher. The beam
he has removed from the track is so heavy that it pins him to the front of
his engine. Suddenly, he sees there is another tie on the track less than ten
feet ahead of him. The locomotive will derail with him on the front of it.
Yet, Johnnie sees an avenue of escape. He realizes that the tie on the track
is straddling one of the rails. If he can hit the overhanging end of the tie on
the track, he can catapult it out of the way of the oncoming train. He lifts
the tie on his chest overhead, and bangs it down on the beam on the track,
thus casting two worries aside with a single blow.
The presuppositions of the preceding gag are quite different from those [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]