Review of Go West (1940) by Bheema D — 17 Apr 2015

It's no secret that the Marx Bros. movies went downhill after the shift to MGM, and while Go West is no Duck Soup or even A Day at the Races, there is one reason to give it a watch. That reason is to witness the last of the genius of Buster Keaton, one of the three greatest silent comedians, at the studio, as he was a gag writer for this and several other of the Brothers' films.

If you've seen any of Buster's silent classics, then you'll easily be able to recognize his influence, especially in the train chase climax, which has moments that could have fit right in to The General or Our Hospitality.

This segment, and other scenes with the Bros. center stage, are what make this movie good, sadly these are brought down by a lot of filler in between them. Yes, for some reason MGM thought it'd be a good idea to put in a random love story and bland musical numbers into a Marx Bros.

movie, not only decreasing the trio's screen time, but making the wait for them pretty hard to get through. Still, if you can suffer through those you'll get rewarded by some classic Marx, they're not all great routines, but the ones that aren't are still funny and the ones that are make everything worth it.

In the end, while it's not one of the best, Go West is still worth a couple watches, specifically for the previously mentioned climax, which is up there with some of their funniest stuff.