Buster Keaton's comedies seem to hold their value with film lovers precisely because the man steps away from sentiment in his movies like it was another falling house front. So I suppose one has to credit his willingness to work away from his comfort zone when he took on the notion of playing the audience's heartstrings so directly as he does here.The sentimental stuff plays very well; it's actually the crux of "Go West's" enjoyment and lasting success. Here, it is the comedy, particularly the physical comedy that was Keaton's stock-in-trade, that seems rushed and suspect.Keaton's character, called "Friendless" in the opening credits, is a poor and lonely Indianian at odds with life. "Some people travel through life making friends where ever {sic} they go," the opening card tells us, "while others just travel through life."Friendless seems on such a journey when fate lands him on a ranch where the fair-if-unsentimental owner (Howard Truesdale) readies his herd of cows for market. Friendless drifts about aimlessly, not sure how to ride a mule or get a bull into a pen, but finds his way after helping a cow named Brown Eyes who has a rock caught in her hoof. She looks after him in turn. Soon the two are inseparable, but then the slaughterhouse beckons, and Friendless must find a way to save his new pal.If you are trying to go veggie or just kick a cheeseburger habit, "Go West" is a film for you. Brown Eyes proves a perfect film companion for the Great Stone Face, having an arrestingly blank visage herself and a similar ability to be at the right place at the right time. While Buster himself is endearingly gormless, introducing himself to the ranch owner with the line: "Do you need any cowboys today?", Brown Eyes looks after him in clever ways, like moving her body in front of a bull charging at an unaware Buster's upturned butt. They are a fun pair.The comedy in this film is what leaves me less won over. I want to like this film, but the gags are too strained and frenetic for classic Keaton work. One New York sidewalk scene early on shows Friendless being run over by a stampeding throng, for no apparent reason except to give audiences some expected laughs. On a train going west, Buster hides in a barrel for some reason, and rolls down a sandbank to no real purpose except to move on to the next scene.One early ranch episode where Buster tries to milk a cow by putting a pail under her and waiting for the milk to pour out was the movie's biggest laugh-getter according to a 1925 New York Times review by Mordaunt Hall. Today, it's hard to imagine such a reaction to a long shot of Friendless adopting a "Thinker" pose while waiting for that milk.The big rally at the end of the film has Friendless leading a herd of cattle through Los Angeles, while people in the crowd react as if under zombie attack. It is forced and overbaked stuff, even if the payoff at the end manages to be quite nifty. Much better are other bits that sprinkle the movie, especially the final exchange between Friendless and the rancher that makes for "Go West's" big takeaway moment, and proof director Keaton's huge investment in the Brown Eyes storyline was worth his atypically sentimental approach.In the end, you get a decent story, some fun moments, and a rare chance to see Buster playing against his stiff on-screen persona to good comic effect. You don't have to be Chaplin to make sentiment work in comedy. Still, when it's over, you are glad it's an experiment Keaton never tried again.

Though it's not a masterwork like "The General", "Go West" perhaps has more heart than any other Keaton film. "Friendless" Buster, after being literally downtrodden in the big city, heads West, where he finds friendship in the most unlikely of leading ladies: an equally forsaken little cow named Brown Eyes. Keaton manages to make this implausible relationship believable, which it has to be, since the logic of the film hinges on it. Pulling off this cinematic magic displays a new and surprising side of Keaton's virtuosity as an actor and director.I'd not recommend "Go West" as a starter film for those not already familiar with Buster Keaton, but it's a delightful, poignant and funny piece of work.

There is a fundamental disagreement about Go West, between those who see it as Keaton's only sentimental movie, and those who think Buster is satirizing sentimentality. I'm in the latter group. Keaton's satire is so subtle, and so devoid of meanness, that people easily miss it—but I'm convinced he's playing the whole opening sequence with tongue firmly in cheek. His character, "Friendless," is just a shade too pathetic to take seriously; even a dog turns away coldly when he tries to pat it. Buster is not appealing for pity here, he's getting in a gentle dig at other performers (particularly, perhaps, one whose initials were C.C.) who did.In a later scene, mooning over a girl who won't give him the time of day, Buster leans wistfully against the edge of a well. His elbow knocks the bucket into the well, the rope unspools and the handle, spinning, clunks him smartly on the head. Don't feel sorry for me, he is saying: laugh at me. Buster's screen character is a stoic (as he was off-screen), and his sense of humor is part of his stoicism. His insistence on seeing the comedy even in painful and humiliating situations is the inexhaustible source of his dignity.Buster had a natural rapport with animals. He shares their mute patience: "They do not sweat and whine about their condition," as Walt Whitman wrote, and neither did he. The heart of Go West is the touching—though faintly ridiculous—friendship between Friendless and Brown Eyes, a pretty little Holstein cow who is ostracized by other cows on the ranch where Friendless works as a hand. Buster trained Brown Eyes himself, and she follows him around with endearing, dopey devotion. In one of the film's best sight gags, he ties a pair of antlers on her head so that she can defend herself against horned steer. She looks like a seriously overweight reindeer. The plot is driven by Friendless's efforts to save Brown Eyes from being sent to the slaughterhouse with the rest of the cattle, and to save his employer from financial ruin. He shows some interest in his employer's attractive daughter, but not a whole lot; poor Kathleen Myers is left with little to do, and looks a bit miffed at playing second fiddle to a cow.Go West is easily Keaton's oddest film, and it's not entirely successful. There's a limit to how much comedy you can get out of cows. Where Buster got the idea of making a movie that centers around cattle I don't know (though I do think "Brown Eyes" is a joke about the devoted, cow-eyed leading ladies featured by some other comedians.) But once he got an idea, Buster always explored it thoroughly and carried it as far as it would go. He dreamed up a promising finale: a herd of cattle turned loose in the streets of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, as he himself later said, it didn't work out as planned. There's an enjoyable zaniness and surrealism to the spectacle, but it's all a little overplayed, Mack Sennett style, which is uncharacteristic for a Keaton movie. Even more atypically, he fakes the final stampede by speeding up the film: it just wasn't possible to get the cows moving fast enough to provide a satisfying final chase.The earlier part of Go West, however, contains a number of beautifully Keatonesque moments: his attempt to adopt a bowlegged walk to look like an old cowboy, the elegantly summarized sequence where he rides the rails, the perfect timing of the supper table scenes, in which Buster repeatedly arrives just as everyone is leaving, then finally "turns the tables." Just hired at the ranch, Buster is handed a pail and stool and told to milk a cow. He approaches the cow, places the pail under her udders, sits down a discreet yard away and waits for the cow to do her thing. When nothing happens, he takes the pail and shows it to the cow, in case she didn't notice it was there, puts it back and keeps waiting patiently. Playing it straight, never italicizing his jokes, finding comedy in stillness and in not reacting, a comedy of negative spaces, is the essence of Keaton's style. He never "milks" his gags—not even this one.In my favorite scene, Buster pokes fun at his own "stone face" persona. He's playing cards with a couple of tough cowboys and accuses one of cheating. The cowboy pulls out his six-gun, levels it at Buster, and orders, "When you say that—SMILE." Buster's reaction is one of his subtlest and most ineffably hilarious close-ups. He pauses; he ponders—not whether to smile, but how to get out of the jam since he CAN'T smile. He tries out the Lillian Gish, Broken Blossoms bit of pushing the corners of his mouth up with his fingers. Not good enough. He sighs. Then a crafty determination creeps into his eyes. He insinuates his pinky behind the cowboy's trigger finger, and with all his strength keeps him from squeezing the trigger while he pulls out his own tiny gun (which, for convenience, he has attached to a string like a child's mitten) and makes the guy back down. Not smiling is a matter of life and death.

"Go West" is an enjoyable change-of-pace from Keaton. It has a creative story that enables Buster to demonstrate some different acting skills, while still having plenty of his trademark slapstick, chases, and stunts, especially in the last half of the film. It's not one of his best-remembered films today, largely because it is rather old-fashioned and sometimes slow, but it has a great many merits for those who enjoy silent comedies.Buster's character is down on his luck, and decides to head west. He winds up on a ranch, working as a cowhand. As he tries rather ineffectively to learn the trade, he becomes attached to a particular cow, 'Brown Eyes'. While trying to protect Brown Eyes from harm, he is caught in the middle of the desperate attempts of the rancher and the rancher's daughter to save their business. Keaton is very good in evoking sympathy for his character while still being amusing, and the story is touching at times while remaining pleasantly silly at others. There are times when it does move pretty slowly, but it is always pleasant to watch.The film would be well worth seeing for the last portion alone. Everything comes together in a madcap stampede sequence that is extremely funny and that contains a lot of inventive gags. It's classic Keaton, and a great way to top off a rather different story.If you are a fan of Buster or of silent comedy in general, make sure to give this one a try. It's not the kind of film that could be expected to attract a wide audience today, but it's a pleasant and enjoyable film, and you might like it as much as those of us on this page have enjoyed it.