Synopsis
The film opens on a statue of Horace Greely, pointing to his right, the pedestal is inscribed: Go West, Young Man, Go West.
In an Indiana town, Friendless (Keaton) alone and unwanted, sells all his possessions for $1.65. He removes several articles from a drawer, including a picture of his mother, and has to pay the storekeeper for them. He is left with pennies after buying bread and salami. He sits and pets a dog; it walks away. In the train yard, he hops a freight car labeled New York Central. In the city, the crowds push him back and forth and finally knock him down and step on him. Returning to the freight yards, he visualizes the statue of Horace Greeley and looks at the cars until he finds one labeled Atchison,Topeka & SanteFe. The car is filled with barrels. He crawls into a barrel; eventually, the barrel rolls off the train. Friendless looks around. He has reached the west, a treeless land with wide views toward distant mountains.
Meanwhile, in the nearby Diamond Bar Ranch yard, cowboys try to milk the small cow, Brown Eyes, but she does not give milk. She is kicked out of the yard into the herd of beef cattle. Friendless arrives at the ranch, puts on some discarded cowboy clothes (but keeps his own hat), and takes a job, although he knows nothing about ranching. Sent out to help the cowboys with the cattle, he and his saddle fall off his mule, and he walks to the herd. Frightened by the cattle, he hides under a small tree. Brown Eyes limps by. He pats her and removes a stone from her hoof. Walking to the cattle, Friendless' foot becomes stuck in a hole. As he is attempting to extricate himself, a bull charges. Brown Eyes steps in front of Friendless and stops the bull. Friendless pets her and raises his hat in thanks. Brown Eyes follows after him. Friendless has a friend.
Friendless is incompetent at ranch work. He cannot rope, ride, or round up cattle. The cowboys laugh at his attempts to get the cattle into a corral. They tell him to wave something red at the cattle, and they will come to him. He cannot even get to meals on time, but he keeps trying. The daughter (Myers) of the Owner of the Diamond Bar Ranch (Truesdale) takes a liking to him. When she gets a splinter, she calls him to take it out.
The Ranch Owner decides that he must ship his cattle to market or face ruin. A neighboring rancher, holding out for a better price, protests the early sale, but the Ranch Owner is determined to sell. The Ranch Owner says that Brown Eyes must go too, despite Friendless' protest. He attempts to buy her but does not have enough money. The girl is about to give him the money when he rides off in the cattle car with Brown Eyes. The train is held up by the neighboring rancher, his cowboys take off the engineer and stoker. All the ranch's cowboys, including Friendless, get off to fight for the cattle. The train starts moving and Friendless climbs aboard. He is the only person on the train.
Friendless stops the train in town and takes out Brown Eyes to run off with her. However, realizing that the Ranch Owner needs to sell the cattle, Friendless releases them and tries to herd them to the stock yards. The cattle, wandering into stores, startle people. Friendless dresses in a devil's outfit, and the cattle chase him, a large, red-colored object, into the stock yard pens. The Ranch Owner and his daughter drive up and find the cattle safely delivered. The Ranch Owner is so grateful that he offers Friendless anything he wants. He wants Brown Eyes. Friendless, Brown Eyes, the Ranch Owner and his daugther get in the car and drive back to the ranch.
Discussion
In Go West Buster Keaton places his stoic
Great Stone Face
character, called Friendless in the film, in a Western
setting and runs through a series of comic, Western-oriented routines featuring
his determination to be a cowboy. Western stereotypes are gently used, the rather
mild jokes involve Friendless' bumbling attempts to carry out cowboy tasks. He
tries to mount and ride a tall mule, brand cattle, win in a poker game (with the
catch phrase, smile when you say that
), and drive cattle to market. The
plot emphasizes the mutual attachment of Friendless and the cow, Brown Eyes. Only
a few gags utilize Keaton's acrobatic prowess.
Friendless is a one-cow cowboy in Western garb: vest, necktie, chaps, boots, gun belt and very small gun, everything except a cowboy hat which he rejects in favor of his own distinctive pork pie hat. The cow, Brown Eyes, is his main costar. The small and rather delicately formed cow contrasts with the larger, heavier beef cattle around it. This contrast is used for visual effect throughout the film.
The openness of the west is contrasted strongly with the previous scenes in Friendless' small home town and among the overwhelming crowds of New York City. After falling out of the westbound train, the first vista he sees is a panorama of a vast and nearly empty landscape with mountains in the distance. These views and the ranch scenes were filmed in the arid, high desert near Kingman, Arizona. Most of the realistic city streets were constructed on the MGM studio lot where a small herd of cattle could be better controlled.