Go West (1925)

Although I did quite enjoy this lively outing for Buster Keating, I did think it just a little tame at times. He cuts quite a lonely figure as he struggles to find his feet at home. There are no jobs and he’s not exactly beating away his friends with a stick. New York! There must be opportunities there? Well possibly, but he loathes the place and it doesn’t care much for him either. Maybe the “Wild West”? Well he doesn’t make it very far before he topples from the train - and right into his own, quite comical, pile of virtual manure. That’d be cow manure! Turns out he might have found his true vocation - even if it is despite himself, and to the chagrin of just about everyone else at the “Diamond Bar Ranch”. In many ways this plays out like an observation of real life. Not just for this hapless soul, but for the town still controlled by the rancher - in this case Howard Truesdale, who had the eligible daughter (Kathleen Myers) with whom, well you can guess the rest. It’s quickly paced and the production manages to actively incorporate loads of the urban hustle and bustle, as well as it’s more rural equivalent quite entertainingly. There are a few inter-titles but they’re largely superfluous to a plot that thrives on some slapstick, certainly, but mainly on the facial expressions of a character actor who makes a fish-out-of-water look exactly that - and one we only ever really laugh with rather than at. It’s good fun, this; pokes a little mischief at the macho cowboy culture and is an effortless hour of light-heartedness to watch.