User Reviews

Saw this for the first time on UK TV, with good musical accompaniment. The elevator scene is class, especially when he does the going-down thing in the phone booth, and then fiddles with the floor-indicator. The jump through the transom is really impressive, and there's so much more. Apart from all the stuff that's been mentioned before, there's the fight with the man who's been bullying the woman with the dog - it just looks so simple. The only drawback is the plot - he gets mixed up with Dead Eye Dan, who then escapes but doesn't reappear, even when some more gangsters get involved later on. The scene where it looks like he's shooting at the fat inspector is funny, but would have been better if Dead Eye was the one pulling the trigger.

I find comedies with too much time devoted to chase scenes, especially involving police, boring. In this film, Buster Keaton spends most of his time running or hiding from police. In part, this is because he threw a horseshoe over his left shoulder, in mimicry of a passerby who then found a wallet on the street. But Keaton has no such luck, as his horseshoe hits a policeman in the face. Eventually , 2 other police join the victim in chasing Keaton all over. Later, Keaton is chased by the gigantic police chief(Joe Roberts) because his picture was on a poster and the newspapers show his picture, as the escaped murderer: Dead Shot Dan. So, how did this happen? ........Instead of minding his own business, Keaton happened to look through a barred window in the jail, seeing a photographer take a picture of Dan, who ducked when the shutter opened. Instead, the picture shows Keaton's head. Dan escaped just after this incident. After, Keaton's picture was shown in the newspaper, everyone he met on the street ran from him, despite the $5000. reward for his capture: dead or alive. Only the police chief pursued him. Keaton's various tricks to avoid capture, either by the 3 police, or by the police chief, constitute the main substance of humor.......Keaton does one good deed in knocking out the man who was bothering a young woman on the street. Later, she is identified as the daughter of the police chief. Later, she invites him for dinner at her parent's apartment. Unfortunately, her father arrived soon after Keaton arrived. After the women retired to another room, Keaton runs across the table, hops on the chief's shoulders, and dives through the window above the door. Previously, Keaton had run into a hospital, hid under a sheet on a surgery bed, and jumped out the window when he saw the hand saw laid on his chest. In another incident, Keaton was running from the chief, and hopped on the outdoors clay horse model of a sculptor, then hidden behind a sheet. Soon, the clay model began to sag, and Keaton ran off........Keaton and the chief spend considerable time in a cat and mouse chase involving the elevators of the high rise the chief lives in. The chief's daughter is also sometimes present, and favors Keaton over her father. Finally, Keaton pulls the floor indicator beyond the highest floor, assuming that the indicator controls the movement of the elevator. We see the elevator shoot out of the roof, and lay on the roof, with the chief inside. Keaton and the girl go across the street, where a sign reads "You furnish the girl, and we will furnish your house". Keaton picks up the girl, slings her over his shoulder, and walks in the door......See it at YouTube

There is a running thread in film comedy that all the great comics are just falling short of the law or on going to jail. Think of that conman's conman W.C.Fields in THE OLD FASHIONED WAY, or the Marx Brothers in A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, or Chaplin in THE ADVENTURER, of Mae West in SHE DONE HIM WRONG. The skirting of the law is inevitable, and when they end up on the side of the law the results are actually still hostile between the forces of law and order and the comic. Think of Lloyd in his first talkie, WELCOME DANGER, trying to "assist" the San Francisco Police Department in the midst of a crime wave, and making police sergeant Edgar Kennedy want to kill him. Think of Laurel and Hardy as ill-fated cops in MIDNIGHT PATROL. I find this type of hostility is so patent in all these giants' (and their peers') comedy that even a fake title for a film deals with it. Think of Jerry Seinfeld in one episode of his series creating a Three Stooges short, SAPPY PAPPIES, where the boys end up being electrocuted for murder.

Buster Keaton frequently pulls in the forces of law and order to be his opponents in his comedies. Look at STEAMBOAT BILL, JR., where he tries to spring his dad from a calaboose. But he actually had more conflict from police forces in his shorts. In CONVICT 13 he is dragged back to prison when mistaken for an escaped convict. In COPS (perfect title - if you see it you'd understand) the police force of a large city is repeatedly looking for Keaton, mistaken for a terrorist). And in THE GOAT he is unable to avoid the police for most of the film.

Keaton is a tramp just looking for food. But he is totally unlucky. When he sees a stranger throw a lucky horseshoe (which Keaton earlier ignored) over his shoulder, and then find a wallet full of money, Keaton tries the same thing, and hits a cop in the head. The cop gives chase, and Keaton (as luck would have it) runs into another cop, tries to act normal, but ends by throwing the other cop into the path of the first. Soon he has three cops chasing him. Briefly shaking them he walks by a window at the local jail where local murderer "Dead Shot Dan" (Malcolm St. Clair*) is being photographed. Passing in back of the barred windows, Keaton is stupid enough to stop and look straight in. The desperado notes this and ducks as the picture is taken. When Dead Shot flees the police, it is Keaton's face on all the wanted posters.

(*St. Clair would eventually be a successful director of silent and early sound comedies, although in his later biography would be a stint at 20th Century Fox where his work with Laurel & Hardy was below par.)

Keaton flees to another town by train (disconnecting the passenger cars containing his pursuers from the locomotive and tender). This is the film (by the way) that has two famous Keaton jokes. His arrival on the locomotive is done in a distant shot, with it coming closer and closer, and suddenly the audience sees Keaton sitting on the cowcatcher.

The second famous sequence goes later (and may have influenced Chaplin somewhat in the beginning of CITY LIGHTS). Keaton had accidentally knocked out a man who was arguing too violently with a pretty woman with a dog (Virginia Fox). When he sees the poster's calling him a murderer he thinks he killed the man. He is being chased in this town by a suspicious chief of police (Joe Roberts), and momentarily loses Roberts in the park. A statue of "Man-of-War" is being constructed and the sculptor is unveiling a clay model of the horse). Keaton is seen seated on the clay model, trying to maintain his dignity as the clay legs of the horse start collapsing under his weight.

Keaton manages to meet the pretty Ms Fox, who invites him home for dinner. Only he doesn't realize her father is Roberts. The last five minutes of the film deal Keaton fleeing and avoiding Roberts while he and Fox get away together.

It's a funny comedy, and a wonderful example of Keaton's work at his best.

"The Goat" is a 23-minute silent black-and-white comedy movie from 1921, so not too long anymore until this one has its 100th birthday. Unfortunately, there is nothing really new to see hear what we do not see in other Keaton films. It started promisingly when Keaton gets mistaken for a dangerous criminal, but the rest of the film is just more of the same. The very young Virginia Fox plays Keaton's love, but this storyline does not even start until way in the second half of the film. It feels really rushed and I wonder if they for once could not have done without a love story that added pretty much nothing to the film, even if it maybe only would have run for 16-18 minutes this way. Joe Roberts is the main antagonist again this time, however not a bad guy, but a police captain who is after Buster despite Buster being actually completely innocent. Of the crimes that is, certainly not for the chaos he causes. The actual bad guy is played by Buster's co-writer and co-director here, who is, for a change, not Edward F. Cline this time. Not a great watch in my opinion. Buster has better works out there.

This is a wonderful comedy short--one of Keaton's absolute best. Through a long series of silly mistakes, Buster is mistaken for a wanted killer. And, as a result, most of the film consists of him running from the cops and one detective in particular. While generally I am NOT a fan of movies with a lot of chase scenes, this one is the absolute best as far as pure athletic and acrobatic ability. I have seen some that have had wilder stunts, but none where the star was so limber and able to move with amazing grace. In particular, there is a scene where he runs across a table, jumps on a man's shoulders and dives up through the transom as lithely as is humanly possible. Plus so many of the gags are funny and perfectly timed, such as how he really comes to believe that he's actually killed someone. By the way, this film is VERY similar to COPS, also by Keaton, but original enough and with enough energy to make them both worth seeing.

This film is brilliant and the only Keaton short I can think of that I probably liked even more was THE PLAYHOUSE--where Buster plays every role at the theater.