Buster Keaton took a routine romantic story and twisted the relationship around. In November 1925 "Go West," he plays a character named Friendless, who, as the name hints at, never had a friend in his life. Hearing the clarion voice of Horace Greeley, he treks out West only to end up working on a ranch. He befriends a cow called Brown Eyes, and the bovine becomes the first friend he ever had. The ranch's owner ships Brown Eyes and his other cows to the Los Angeles stockyard along with Buster. There's a mass breakout of the rebellious cows once they get to LA, creating all sorts of mayhem in the downtown city streets.
Filming "Go West" was quite an ordeal. The ranch scenes were shot in the deserts of Arizona, where 120-degree temperatures were the norm. Adding to the difficulty, Brown Eyes went into heat (as in the estrus period) for two weeks. Filming stopped for that stretch waiting for the movie's main star to act normal again.
Buster also hired his friend, Roscoe Arbuckle, to play a bit part as a woman in the department store. She's seen from a distance scampering away from the cows who entered the shop. His close-ups were played by Babe London, whose role as the toothless nurse Nora has Shemp fall in love with her, is well known to Three Stooges fans in 'Scrambled Brains.' The city-cattle sequences were duplicated in the 1974 film "For Pete's Sake," with Barbara Streisand. The movie has cattle running amok in New York City for the Peter Yates-directed film.
Filming "Go West" was quite an ordeal. The ranch scenes were shot in the deserts of Arizona, where 120-degree temperatures were the norm. Adding to the difficulty, Brown Eyes went into heat (as in the estrus period) for two weeks. Filming stopped for that stretch waiting for the movie's main star to act normal again.
Buster also hired his friend, Roscoe Arbuckle, to play a bit part as a woman in the department store. She's seen from a distance scampering away from the cows who entered the shop. His close-ups were played by Babe London, whose role as the toothless nurse Nora has Shemp fall in love with her, is well known to Three Stooges fans in 'Scrambled Brains.' The city-cattle sequences were duplicated in the 1974 film "For Pete's Sake," with Barbara Streisand. The movie has cattle running amok in New York City for the Peter Yates-directed film.