Go West (1925)

With little luck at keeping a job in the city a New Yorker tries work in the country and eventually finds his way leading a herd of cattle to the West Coast.

Director:

Buster Keaton

Writers:

Buster Keaton, Lex Neal (assistant writer)

Stars:

Buster Keaton, Howard Truesdale, Kathleen Myers

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Howard Truesdale	...	Owner of the Diamond Bar Ranch
Kathleen Myers	...	His Daughter
Ray Thompson	...	The Foreman
Brown Eyes	...	Herself
Buster Keaton	...	Friendless

Storyline

A young man who doesn't find a job in his small hometown, tries his luck in New York, but is overwelmed by the life of the city, so decides to try his luck somewhere else after a only a few minutes in New York. He falls off a train near a ranch, where he tries his luck as a cowbowy, being in his own way very sucessful. But he shows what he can do when the farm has to bring a 100 head of cattle to the slaughterhouses of Los Angeles to avoid going bankrupt, against the will of his neighbour who wants a better price. After a shoot-out with the neighbour's men he's the only person on a Los Angeles bound train with 1000 cows....

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Plot Keywords:

friendless | animal companion | ranch | cow | unemployment | 

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Taglines:

Come with Buster out into the vast open spaces where men are men and cows are their only lady friends. See him chaperone a thousand wild steers in a big City- and a thousand and one excruciatingly funny scenes! A METRO-GOLDWYN SPECIAL. (Print ad-Sunday Mail, ((Brisbane, Qld.)) 5 December 1926)

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Genres:

Comedy | Western

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 November 1925 (USA)

Also Known As:

Auf in den Westen

Filming Locations:

Coca-Cola Bldg. - 963 E. 4th Street, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Buster Keaton Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

68 min 76 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In order to achieve comic chemistry between human and animal, Keaton personally trained the bovine performer. During the shooting of Go West, production ground to a halt for two weeks when Brown Eyes went into heat. However, she gets a credit in the movie and even got a salary for her acting - $13 a week.

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Goofs

When the wolves threaten Brown Eyes, they are in daylight while Brown Eyes is in night time.

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Quotes

[first lines]
General store owner: [to Friendless] I'll give you a dollar sixty five for the whole business.

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Connections

Featured in Birth of Hollywood: Episode #1.2 (2011)

User Reviews

Buster And His Bovine - Not A Bad Film

No, as most critics have said, this isn't one of Buster Keaton's better feature films, but it's not bad and surely it is better than what you might have read in some critic's book. It has its moments and is a bit different in way, if you consider a man and cow falling in love with each other! (This should be a "cult classic!")

Buster heeds the advice, "Go West, Young Man, Go West," and winds up out in the middle of nowhere after crawling inside a barrel and then the barrel falling out of a train.

He winds up taking discarded cowboy clothes and trying his hand at that profession but, of course, has no clue even how to ride a horse. His only accomplishment is taking a stone out of a cow's hoof. The cow is so grateful, it follows Buster around the rest of the movie and the two become quite attached.

After some low-key attempts at several projects, Buster winds up - I am really condensing this - back on a train with the cattle hoping to be sold so that the almost-destitute boss can get enough money to save his ranch. The train is robbed, the cattle derailed and the herd winds up in the middle of a big city!

That's the real fun part of the film, as it is in so many silent comedies. The adventures of seeing a herd of cattle going down the main city streets and then into barbershops, Turkish baths, Ladies Department Stores, etc., is very funny.

The ending was very clever and final punch-line not what the viewers anticipate. All in all, not a lot of laugh-out-loud scenes but a decent Keaton silent film and definitely worth a watch. I am glad most of the reviewers here appreciated this movie.