out of fashion. The traveling shots of the locomotive are clear precursors to his later work in The General (1926) and were shot in the same Oregon locations. Keaton cast his wife Natalie Talmadge in the lead role of Virginia, directing her to play her part as an old fashioned southern belle as well as an innocent schoolgirl. He also cast his father Joe Keaton as a grouchy train engineer and Joe Roberts as Virginia's father. The film was shot in Truckee, about 485 miles north of Los Angeles, and was decorated to recreate the Shenandoah Valley of the 1830s. The cast and 20-person crew arrived in Truckee in July 1923, along with the fully functional locomotive, three railroad passenger cars, 30 set pieces and enough building material for several miles of train track. As was normal for a Keaton production, the cast and crew often stopped shooting to play baseball or fish for Truckee salmon and trout when the opportunities arose. Roberts suffered a stroke on set during shooting. After a short hospital stay in Reno, he returned to finish his role but died of another stroke a few months later. Keaton, who never used a stunt double, nearly drowned in the Truckee River while filming one of his stunts: In a scene in river rapids, his restraining wire broke and he fell into the rocky river. It took ten minutes for the crew to find him face down and immobile on a riverbank. He recovered but he decided to shoot the rest of the river scene on a set in Los Angeles. He also shot a waterfall scene on a set using miniature scenery. However, he did perform the dangerous stunt where his character swings from a rope to the waterfall. He cast his fourteen-month-old son, Buster Keaton Jr., to play a baby version of himself in the film's prologue. The bright film lights irritated the infant's eyes and he had to be removed from the set. Our Hospitality is the only film to feature three generations of the Keaton family: Buster, his father Joe, and his infant son. Keaton's wife Natalie was pregnant with their second child during filming, and late in the production she had to be filmed in ways that concealed her growing size. Reception The film premiered on November 3, 1923, and was released on November 19, 1923. Keaton's previous film Three Ages was