The General, film review: Buster Keaton's 1926 masterpiece looks better than ever

(U) Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton, 89 mins Starring: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender

Re-released in a pristine new digitally restored version, Buster Keaton's 1926 masterpiece looks better than ever.

This isn't an out-and-out slapstick comedy, although there are some sublimely funny moments. It's a full-blown civil war epic, which sees Keaton venturing into D W Griffith territory (thankfully without the racist undertones that blighted The Birth of a Nation).

Keaton plays a Confederate railway engineer, forbidden to enlist but who proves his courage to his sweetheart by saving her from the Union soldiers who've kidnapped her.