Go West took Keaton to a cattle ranch, where a city man who could not even ride a horse ended up saving a herd.
Go West was released in 1925. Keaton played Friendless, a young man who drifted west in search of work and found a job on a cattle ranch, even though he knew nothing about horses or cattle. He befriended a cow, which he named Brown Eyes, and the animal followed him everywhere.
The film’s climax was a cattle stampede through a city, in which Friendless, dressed in a red devil costume that attracted the herd, led the cattle through the streets to the stockyards. The sequence required careful planning and real animals, and it became one of Keaton’s most memorable finales.
Go West was a gentler film than Seven Chances, with more time for character and for the landscape. It showed Keaton’s affection for animals and for outsiders, and it remains a warm, funny example of his work in the mid-1920s.