Pest from the West

Aside from an amusing sequence in which Buster serenades the leading lady, this talkie two-reeler suffers from weak, tired material. The atmosphere is seedy and and the gags are uninspired (e.g. Buster repeatedly falls off a boat). This short was a reworking of a feature-length comedy Buster made in England a few years earlier, variously known as "The Invader" or "An Old Spanish Custom," and although the remake represents an improvement over the original it nonetheless falls far short of what Keaton could achieve in his heyday. Poor Clyde Bruckman, author of the screenplay, fell back on some desperate ploys to perk things along, putting Buster in a procession of exaggerated ethnic costumes for laughs. I guess they figured if that shtick started getting old, Buster could always fall off the boat again. The story limps along to a flat, anticlimactic ending, and viewers who've never seen the star in anything else could be excused for wondering what his legendary reputation is based on.

The serenade gives us a hint of Buster's vaudeville past and is certainly the comic high point. In this sequence he attempts to perform "In a Little Spanish Town" for the leading lady, singing in his croaky voice while accompanying himself on a ukulele. Her exasperated neighbor (comedy stalwart Bud Jamison) pummels him with flower pots throughout the number, all dropped to the beat. It's a cute routine, seen to best advantage in the documentary "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow."

For me, the biggest problem here is that Buster is once more stuck playing the hapless lunkhead character featured in the worst of his MGM features, another "Elmer" type who appears to be sleepwalking, unaware that the leading lady is playing him for a sucker. This sure isn't the attractive, resourceful guy who was the hero of THE GENERAL. Keaton was still fairly young at this point and capable of better work than we see here (as he would prove on TV in the '50s), but the people in charge at Columbia Pictures didn't know how to use his abilities properly or else they just didn't care.

Fans usually assert that this was the best of Buster's series of short comedies for Columbia, and unfortunately that seems to be the case: some of the others are downright painful to watch. Such a sad waste of talent. Masochistic Keaton buffs will watch the Columbia shorts anyhow, but everyone else should stick with his silent work to see the man at his best.

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.

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!

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the great Buster Keaton was out of work and in desperate need for money so he made a string of forgettable short films for Columbia Pictures. Although he was a comic genius during the silent era, his career in sound movies was mostly horrible due to the industry's unwillingness to simply let him do what he did best and they insisted in trying to force him into uncomfortable molds that just didn't work. Sadly, because Keaton was lousy with money, he was so hard up for cash and unwilling to balk with the studios that he made some dreadful film and TV appearances that probably made him ashamed to look in the mirror. This is a stark contrast to Chaplin and Lloyd who made far fewer sound films but chose them much better. Plus, they knew when to walk away and retain much of their dignity. This is particularly true of Harold Lloyd, who never would have appeared in American-International movies such as BEACH BLANKET BINGO or a particularly wretched episode of "The Twilight Zone" like Keaton did.

As for the Columbia shorts, they were mostly directed and produced by Jules White who was also responsible for the Three Stooges shorts--though this is one of the two made by Del Lord--another Stooge director. This is very, very obvious when you watch the Keaton shorts as the plots look indiscernible from the Stooges' films--with the same gags, sound effects and style. In fact, in some cases, Keaton does the same plots the Stooges had first done and this isn't surprising. That's because Columbia OFTEN repeated plots and many of the Stooges' later shorts for the studio are remakes of their earlier films! While Stooges die-hards might excuse this and think ALL of their films are gems, this is definitely NOT true--the remakes are definite duds. As for Keaton fans (and I am definitely one--having seen more of his silent films than practically anyone on the planet), they will also usually admit that his sound films were pretty poor and the Columbia films were at best passable entertainment. Plus, the Stooges' style is a horrible thing to try to fit the great Keaton into. It's akin to putting Greta Garbo in a Marx Brothers film!!!

One reviewer described this as being "one of Keaton's worst" and I am in total agreement, though the film had one thing doing for it. The awful and untalented Elsie Ames (who co-starred with Keaton in most of these films for Columbia) is not in this one! This first film for Columbia Pictures was still a dud from start to finish and mostly looked like Keaton and the writers just didn't care. Why else would they repeat the exact same gags again and again--especially when it wasn't funny the first time? After the third time Keaton falls into the water, if you look at the pretty lady who plays lead you'll see she has a very bored look on her face--this says it all! In addition, in one scene there is clearly a reflection in the glass of the boom microphone that they didn't even bother re-shooting. So if they didn't care, why should we?! Despite the jealous boyfriend who vows to kill anyone looking at his woman, despite the duel at the end and despite the great Keaton appearing in this film, it's about as bad as you can get and I don't recommend you waste your time with it.

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.