Pest from the West

Newly hired from the notorious, but successful Columbia Short department in 1939 Keaton decided to open his score with a rework of his failed UK feature THE INVADER, a film with some interesting moment, but very overlong and with no proper ending. For PEST FROM THE WEST cutting down the story to 20 min did a good thing, also the film benefits from some nice setting, reused from Columbia features. The beginning is a bit shaky, the falling-of–the-boat gag is a bit overworked, but even this is saved by a single great line. The second part then is beautiful constructed, beginning with Keaton starts singing "In a little Spanish town" armed with a ukulele and ending this song after a wild chase, this time a stolen guitar in hands. It is not exactly 100% Keaton, but it is still very funny. Keaton hated most of his films he did for Columbia and it is clear why. The fast and often careless way of making these films didn't mix with his attitude towards comedies. But for this time he could pick the story and rework this with the talented director Del Lord, so the result was much better then expected. This didn't seem to be the case for most of the remaining nine other shorts he made for Columbia between 1939 and 1941, but they all became quite a box office hit. It is a bit ironic, but for Keaton, who was basically blacklisted as a performer in Hollywood before that, this success reopen doors for him a little. His part in the A-feature Hollywood CAVALCARD was apparently a direct result of that and (slowly but anyway) the things starts to get better for Keaton. P.S. Columbia tries to lure Keaton back in 1942, but he resisted. Enough was enough.

"The Pest from the West" has the honor of being considered the best of the short subjects that Buster Keaton starred in for Columbia Pictures. Perhaps that's partially because it was released first and got a lot of exposure, but while I'm not sure it's so many lightyears ahead of the other Keaton Columbia shorts, it it very funny, and allows the gags and comic situations to build throughout the short.

While the material gets to build in a satisfactory way, though, this is somewhat oddly contrasted with the fact that the short seems a little contextless as a whole. Buster plays some kind of odd, moneyed man who seems to travel around the globe in a small boat with a large collection of local costumes and three loyal servants, and then falls instantly in love with a Mexican waitress. Maybe it feels like we're missing a good bit of what is going on here because much of the material for "The Pest from the West" was pulled from an earlier Keaton feature film.

It certainly LOOKS the best of all the Columbia shorts, with sets nicely dressed up as Mexico, and plenty of location shots at a dock. The outdoor scenes at the water accent the humor of the great rule-of-three gag with Buster's sailors pushing off when he's only gone back to the boat to fetch something. There's the subtle advantage too of some background music -- rare in Columbia shorts but, like it did in a lot of great Hal Roach films, enhancing the pleasant, comedy atmosphere -- coming from the Mexican band in the café. Unfortunately, the supporting players in this film are quite terrible and wooden, especially Richard Fiske as Ferdinand the Bullfighter, who it's almost shocking to think was ever allowed to deliver a line again.

This all isn't too much of a problem, though, since Buster himself gets most of the material. He handles it very well, of course, with his standout physical bit involving trying to dance while his shoes are stuck to the ground. Also the novelty of hearing Buster Keaton sing is certainly, well, a rare one -- and it is part of a well-timed gag sequence.

There's a lot of very funny material here, though slightly let down by the weak support Buster has to play off of, and the setup leaves us a little bewildered.

This is the first and indeed the best of Buster Keaton's ten Columbia shorts. Most of these suffer from Stooge-style slapstick and heavy-handed direction,

but this first effort is great fun to watch. (Buster himself liked this one best, according to the late Mrs. Keaton.) In this reworking of his 1936 feature "An Old Spanish Custom," Buster plays an international tourist who falls for a pretty senorita. But he has several run-ins with belligerent locals, each resulting in a hasty retreat, a quick change of costume, and Buster coming back for more.

Exhibitors and audiences loved this film in 1939, and it was the first Columbia two-reeler selected for re-release (in 1948). It's still a crowd-pleaser today; this writer attended a screening where the audience members didn't just applaud -- they cheered!

According to several sources, "Pest From The West" is Keaton's best in the series of ten short films he made for Columbia Pictures. A remake of his 1934 feature "The Invader," it was directed by Del Lord instead of the awful Jules White.

One reviewer has written the same thing for the first six shorts in the set "Buster Keaton Collection" available from Sony. The first two paragraphs are virtually identical and contain several falsehoods. He writes Keaton was lousy with money, but the truth is, according to his wife Eleanor, when Keaton divorced he lost all his money. Plus he was the sole support of his mother, sister, and brother. When he signed on to Columbia, he made only $2,500 for each two-reeler, half of what he was paid at Educational.

This reviewer also compares Keaton to Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, but that is silly. Their circumstances were completely different, he repeatedly claims that he has "seen more of his (Keaton's) silent films than practically anyone one on the planet" which is ridiculous. I have seen, and others have as well, just as much as he has and I have seen Keaton on the stage a few years before his death In 1959 playing the king in "Once Upon A Mattress." 0 of 9 found his review helpful and that speaks for itself.

Pest from the West (1940)

* (out of 4)

Buster Keaton's first short for Columbia is one of his worst. He plays a millionaire who sails to Mexico where he falls in love with a woman but what he doesn't know is that she has a psychotic boyfriend who will kill anyone. It goes without saying but this is an incredibly horrid short that doesn't feature a single laugh in it. This is a reworked version of Keaton's also horrible The Invader so neither version is really worth viewing. This is an incredibly lazy short as the same gags are used over and over throughout the film. The jokes weren't funny the first time around and they're even worse on the fifth time. These jokes include Keaton falling into the water as well as putting on the wrong outfit for Mexico.