Top Five Gags (Our Hospitality)

It was hard picking a Top Five for Our Hospitality, because it doesn’t just have great gags – it has great gag sequences, long stretches of the film with nonstop killer comedy or terrific recurring bits that crop up throughout.  In the end, here’s what I came up with.

The Great Train Ride

Honestly, I could have made a Top Five just of train gags in this movie.  I love everything about the train ride so much.  The whole thing is fantastic, but if I had to pick one bit – okay, two – it would be the scenes where the engine variously winds up behind the rest of the cars (don’t ask) and tooling down the untracked dirt road.  The guy on the back car blowing his horn at the engineer and pointing to the front like, “You’re supposed to be up there, dummy!” just kills me.

Old-Timey Pistols

This film has a lot of fun playing with the early-19^th-century setting (the train sequence is packed with these jokes,) and I just love the running gag of how long it takes the brothers to reload their pistols.  The first time, Willie winds up saving himself accidentally by “helpfully” firing the round in one brother’s jammed gun, but he later uses it to his advantage, pinching a gun and firing it to buy himself a little time.

An Awkward Dinner

Willie’s just realized he’s trapped in a house with a family that wants him dead, and he has to sitting down to dinner with them.  All the men keeping tabs on each other while the parson says grace is way too funny, and Willie’s all-around jumpiness – especially when Mr. Canfield starts vigorously sharpening his knife to carve the roast – is great, too.

Permanent Houseguest

Willie’s initial attempts to keep from leaving (including missing-hat lies and lame dog tricks) are funny enough, but his efforts to stay in the house, and so stay safe by the hospitality code that prevents the Canfields from killing him while he’s under their roof, are even better the next day.  His expression when his girl’s sheet music blows out the patio door onto the lawn is priceless, and I like his sneaky way to secure himself a bit of alone time with her.

End of His Rope

Naturally, there’s plenty of humor to be mined from two men tied together with a long rope, one of whom wants to kill the other.  Put them on a high rocky outcrop over water, though, and it’s amazing.  Absolutely best moment of this scene is when Buster sees the brother go sailing past him over the edge, and he just braces himself against the rocks and gives the most panicked-yet-deadpan look to the camera.  Perfect.