Indiana transient Buster Keaton (as Homer Holiday) is unable to make friends or hold a job. Even dogs walk away when he pets them. Trampled and downtrodden, Mr. Keaton decides to "Go West" and start a new life. He hops a train. He hops a horse. Keaton finds the western life more agreeable and begins working as a ranch-hand. His first job is to milk a cow named Brown Eyes. Buster puts the pail in the right place but expects the milk to pour out, unassisted. Despite this beginning, Buster and Brown Eyes bond. Their scenes together are sweet, with the cow allowing us to see a rarer side of Keaton's stock character. As a love interest, she functions better than female co-stars like Kathleen Myers...
A memorable scene without Brown Eyes involves Keaton at the typical western card table poking fun at the classic line, "When you call me that, smile" (from 1902's "The Virginian"). The only way a stone-faced Keaton can "smile" is by employing the method used by Lillian Gish in D.W. Griffith's "Broken Blossoms" (1919). In a scene wearing that much eye make-up, Keaton is wise not to smile. Also worth catching is Keaton dressed as the Devil leading a herd of cattle through the streets of Los Angeles. "Some people travel through life making friends where ever they go, while others just travel through life," a prelude advises. This isn't the best of Keaton's great 1920s streak of classics, but it may be the friendliest.
******* Go West (10/25/1925) Buster Keaton ~ Buster Keaton, Kathleen Myers, Howard Truesdale, Ray Thompson
A memorable scene without Brown Eyes involves Keaton at the typical western card table poking fun at the classic line, "When you call me that, smile" (from 1902's "The Virginian"). The only way a stone-faced Keaton can "smile" is by employing the method used by Lillian Gish in D.W. Griffith's "Broken Blossoms" (1919). In a scene wearing that much eye make-up, Keaton is wise not to smile. Also worth catching is Keaton dressed as the Devil leading a herd of cattle through the streets of Los Angeles. "Some people travel through life making friends where ever they go, while others just travel through life," a prelude advises. This isn't the best of Keaton's great 1920s streak of classics, but it may be the friendliest.
******* Go West (10/25/1925) Buster Keaton ~ Buster Keaton, Kathleen Myers, Howard Truesdale, Ray Thompson