Out West

The best part of the whole short--Roscoe's routine: the famous one-handed cigarette roll, striking the match on the train, then leaping into the caboose as the train speeds by--in less time than it takes to read this. Worth the price of admission alone!

Once they started working together Buster Keaton and Roscoe Arbuckle made their first half-dozen short comedies in New York, from spring through autumn of 1917. Late that year Arbuckle relocated his "Comique" production company to Southern California, and the gang celebrated the move with an elaborate two-reel comedy called Out West, a satire on the hard-bitten variety of Westerns cranked out by William S. Hart and Broncho Billy Anderson in the early days of motion pictures. The result is a distinctly harsh comedy that doesn't hold up as well as most of the other Arbuckle-Keaton Comique collaborations. This is the sort of movie in which our hero spikes a horse's water supply with liquor just for laughs, someone gets shot in the butt in almost every scene, lots of Injuns and Mexicans get killed, and a dozen bottles are smashed over the villain's head without effect, at which point a six-shooter is emptied into him, also without effect.

The comedy in Out West is so violent some of it actually works as parody -- which, after all, is how it was intended. When a cheating gambler is fatally shot, grim-faced saloon proprietor Buster coolly disposes of his body through a convenient trap-door, and this still works as a jab at actual Westerns where violent death is treated as routinely as the ringing of the phone. Next, when the bartender is shot down and Buster instantly puts up a sign reading "Bartender Wanted," it's darkly funny although the joke is starting to wear a bit thin. But the joke is ruined when a gang of sadistic cowboys torment a black man by shooting at his feet to make him dance, and Buster & Roscoe join right in. They only stop when stern Salvation Army lass Alice Lake enters and puts a halt to the rough-housing, saying "Aren't you ashamed?" They are, and they put away their guns, but the mood has soured. (I first saw this comedy at a public screening during a Keaton festival some years ago, and although it had been going over fairly well up to that point this sequence totally killed the laughter for the duration of the running time.)

Even allowing that Out West is a parody, a lot of the material -- and not just the racial humor -- is in surprisingly poor taste for these guys, although fortunately it's a lapse that was not repeated in their subsequent careers. There are some good gags here, even some clever ones, but they're practically lost in the shuffle, weakened in impact by the prevailing callous tone.

Out West is currently available on video and DVD in two releases, from Kino and from Image Entertainment, and it's worth noting that the two versions differ significantly. The Kino print is badly tattered and missing several bits that survive in the Image release, which looks better in general. Also, the two prints have been edited differently, and several dialog titles and a couple of character names differ in the respective versions; this isn't unusual with films from the silent era, which were frequently altered for foreign releases or even to suit local taste in various locales within the U.S. The Image version features jaunty period music well selected for individual sequences, while the Kino release features music by a group called the Alloy Orchestra that I find mostly jarring and inappropriate, to put it politely. Over all I'd say that anyone interested in seeing this film should seek out the Image Entertainment version, but be forewarned that Out West does not show off either Buster Keaton or Roscoe Arbuckle to best advantage.

Much of the material in "Out West" works well, at least as long as you understand its intent. It combines some of the usual Arbuckle/Keaton slapstick with a satirical look at some of the conventions of the Western genre of its time, and it has a decent variety of scenes and settings.

The story starts off with some amusing antics by Arbuckle on a train, and then goes on from there as he meets up with the other characters. Keaton gets some good moments, and Arbuckle regular Al St. John has a funny role as a villainous gun-slinger.

They take some chances with some of the material, and it's easy to see how today's audiences could misinterpret it. There are a couple of morbid gags that work pretty well, but there are a couple of other things are just not at all funny now, even given that they were parodying the Westerns of the time.

Overall, it has some good moments that most fans of Arbuckle and Keaton would enjoy, but there are other parts of it that even their fans will probably find somewhat uncomfortable.

This is a pretty weird parody of Westerns by Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. Unlike some of their other films together, Keaton actually plays a larger supporting role.

The film is full of bizarre and violent jokes that kind of work but are a bit atypical of what you'd expect from these usually sweet comedians. At one point, a guy is obviously cheating at poker and bystander Keaton shoots the guy about 5 times and then opens a trap door and kicks the body inside and slams down the lid! THAT was certainly unexpected! Later, Fatty displays gunsmanship that would make anyone proud--if we'd have had him in WWII, the war might have only lasted a week! All in all, a strange but funny departure and worth seeing just for its weirdness.

Out West marks a distinct departure for Arbuckle as a director in that compared to what had come before it had a much stronger, more thought out and developed style and story. It has more genuinely clever and funny ideas than the preceding shorts with Al St John and Buster Keaton put together - the high concept of the western theme clearly releasing the creative genius that Fatty could display.

Keaton and St John also have stronger parts than their usual nameless knockabout side characters that had come before. Visually the sepia rounded-corner 19th century photograph look of it is a stylish stylistic directorial choice from Arbuckle, showing the talent he could display (and would again) rather than simply allowing the action to be the film. You feel the story here from the outset. Excellent.