The opening sequence of this two-reel comedy will strike a familiar chord for Laurel & Hardy fans: we find Stan, still working solo at this point, looking dapper but decidedly out of place in the Wild West as he rides in a stagecoach, alongside an attractive young woman. We soon learn that he's traveling to the town of Hot Dog to collect an inheritance from a recently deceased relative; and we're reminded of Stan and Ollie, wearing their tenderfoot derbies and tailcoats, traveling out to Brushwood Gulch to deliver a deed to Mary Roberts. It's a dozen years 'til Way Out West, and unlike that film West of Hot Dog is no classic, but this modest effort does have its moments, and for latter-day viewers may suggest a dress rehearsal of sorts for the 1937 gem Stan would make with Babe Hardy.
The stagecoach in which our hero is riding is robbed by outlaws while Stan, no hero after all, struggles to keep his pants up and is generally ineffectual. His fellow passenger (i.e. the lady) is disgusted with his cowardice, and gives him the cold shoulder when they meet later in the town of Hot Dog. But Stan has other things on his mind: he has learned during a visit to a lawyer's office that he is but one of three heirs to the estate, and, as it happens, the other two claimants are the guys who held up the stagecoach! Stan is the primary heir, but if he should die then the estate will be split between the others. (Sounds like Set-Up City, doesn't it?) In the film's most memorable bit, the other two guys attempt to eliminate their rival by simply flinging him out the window of the lawyer's office. Three times in succession we see Stan hurled out the second floor window to the ground below. No, we actually see a dummy repeatedly hurled out the window, at which point a groggy-looking Stan takes its place on the ground thanks to elementary camera trickery, but the trick is smoothly accomplished and the sequence earns its laughs.
Instead of wasting any more time attempting to kill Stan, who appears to be indestructible, the bad guys join up with a larger gang and rob the saloon, then head for a remote hideout. Stan, coincidentally, heads for the very same place, where the bad guys attempt to finish him off. Things get rather macabre in the finale, for one by one the outlaws somehow manage to shoot each other while Stan emerges unscratched. (A lot of the comedy here is pretty dark: in an earlier sequence in the saloon, a man killed a card game dispute is briskly dumped through a trap-door, in business borrowed from the Roscoe Arbuckle/Buster Keaton comedy Out West.) Eventually, the townspeople come to believe that Stan is a hero merely because he survived the massacre in the hideout, and the young lady from the stage coach—who turns out to be the sheriff's daughter—is suddenly interested in him. But Stan, now playing the Strong Silent Type who rides alone, strikes a tragic posture and asserts his independence . . . just in time for a closing gag that makes him look foolish again.
As this summary should indicate, West of Hot Dog is a cartoon-y silent comedy with all the dramatic heft of the average Ben Turpin two- reeler, but that's not a put-down. It's the cinematic equivalent of a Popsicle, and nothing's wrong with that on a hot summer afternoon. This outing actually holds up better than a number of Laurel's other solo efforts: there's a steady supply of gags and a coherent (if silly) plot, while Stan's own characterization is more appealing than it was in some of his other vehicles. Viewers interested in tracing the development of this great comic talent should definitely give it a look.
