Go West (1925)

Go West (Buster Keaton, 1925) There have been a couple features with the title, but this is the one written, directed and starring Keaton as a woe-begone dweller of a podunk town who sells everything he owns at the Fade From Black, only to find (after buying food and buying back the family photo he'd forgotten in a drawer) that he's a completely free man (freedom being just another word for nothing left to lose).  Deterred and detoured, he hoboes a freight train and accidentally (not exactly the right word as Keaton's "accidents" are always complicated) finds himself on a working ranch out west.  A discraded set of chaps is all the references he needs to start working on the ranch and working the herd, starting from the ground up.  Removing a stone from a heifer's hoof gains him a friend and a constant companion in the work-a-day world, as the un-broco'd Buster and bovine look out for the other.  

It's a classic fish-on-the-prairie story as Keaton's tenderfoot and his tender-footed cow-friend find ways to get things done while not doing things in the normal cowboy fashion, and any mentioning of the lessons learned in milking, lassoing and branding a cow will only spoil the surprise.  Let's just say that PETA would be proud.

The way most silent comedies work is with a long series of short bits and then an extended sequence in the final couple reels, and that was Keaton's standard blue-print, as well.  The final complication involves getting the herd to market so that the ranch can pay its bills, while at the same time, saving the one cow that Keaton has become the guardian cowboy to.  It involves a train-trip (a Keaton specialty) as well as one logistical movie-making nightmare—a cow stampede through the streets of roaring '20's Los Angeles, but done at a pace with a tangential series of complications that amaze.

As always seems to be the case with silent comedies, especially those of Keaton, the fewer words the better.  Just seek it out and enjoy.

The first "Mexican stand-off" in movies is instantly defused with a pinkie finger.

Seven Chances

Seven Chances (Buster Keaton, 1925) In this 56 minute feature, Buster Keaton must survive the rocky road to getting married...or else.  Seven Chances is a few films in one: it starts with a brief prologue in tableau'd fades of a stalled romance between Jimmy Shannon (Keaton) and Mary Jones (Ruth Dwyer) as they don't communicate as the seasons change around them, and Mary's puppy becomes a full-grown dog.

Then, the plot thickens.  A financial broker on the verge of bankruptcy, he is informed that his grandfather has bequeathed him seven millions of dollars on one condition—he must be married by 7 pm on his 27th birthday (which happens to be that day).  His first instinct is to marry Mary, but circumstances force him to look elsewhere, and he spends the day trying desperately to get married, but is refused at every drop to his knees.  

Next, an ad is placed in the paper for a bride, which produces an entire church-load of potentials, which, once panic ensues, begins a long drawn out chase, first through the streets of 20's Los Angeles (in scenes highly reminiscent of Keaton's 1922 short Cops, but with the added joke of runners in white dresses and long veils).  As is typical with Keaton, the ideas build, usually logically from barriers and obstructions and passers-by thrown into the mix, the silent equivalent of a parkour course which the dexterous (and seemingly boneless) Keaton must dodge, duck and dance around while skampering at full tilt.

Of course, there must be a chase...

But, once out of the city limits, Nature starts to come into play with expected and unexpected obstacles that keep piling on, literally, in an extended sequence where Keaton, running down an impossibly long hill, must avoid an avalanche of boulders, that seem bent on pushing him around.  The sequence came out of a preview, where a scene of a flopping Keaton dislodging some rocks, start following him down hill, which he quickly tries to avoid.  The shot garnered the biggest laugh of the preview, so Keaton went back and shot some more footage and built another routine out of it, building, building, building, extending the momentum, and the resulting audience reaction until he was satisfied.

There are a couple of brief un-PC moments (one of which will fly by modern audiences, but it involves the mentioning of a '20's female impersonator), and there's just a whiff of misogyny here—a mob of women is still a mob, though—but, then part of the joke is that if Jimmy can't have "his" girl, any girl will do, but it's belied by all of the "any" girls rejecting him outright.  Also of interest is a brief peak at a young Jean Arthur in the role of a country club receptionist.

Anything involving Keaton on-screen is worth seeing, and good for quite a few laughs...when one isn't gaping in wonderment of what the man was capable of, and capable of doing.

The country portion of the Seven Chances chase scene.

The scene at :30 inspired the extended avalanche scene.