Set during the Civil War and based on a true incident, The General follows engineer Johnnie Gray (Keaton), who is rejected by the Confederate Army and then suffers the further humiliation of his girlfriend thinking him a coward. When a small band of Union soldiers penetrate far beyond Confederate lines to steal his locomotive, Gray sets off in hot pursuit. 

Considered to be the last great comedy of the silent era, and consistently ranked as one of the greatest comedies of all time, Keaton’s pioneering film more-or-less invented the action movie and is as startling now as it was in 1926.