As my classic film buddies on Twitter were so kind to remind me, today would have been Buster Keaton’s 117th birthday, and what better time to break out a classic Keaton short than that? Not that you ever really need an excuse, but hey, when one presents itself…
You might expect the still above, with Buster riding toward the camera on a locomotive’s cowcatcher, to come from his best-known feature, The General – but look closer. He’s not wearing his Johnny Reb Civil War outfit from that film, but his familiar porkpie hat and a regular suit. Nope, this is from the 1921 short film The Goat, a film which has much in common with his well-known short Cops, but for my money, this one is even more hilarious and manic. Here, a down-on-his-luck Buster is mistaken for an escaped criminal and spends the rest of the film on the run from every cop he can find. It doesn’t have the sheer volume of cops in the chase that Cops does, but it’s totally non-stop and has an above average number of both incredible stunts and hilarious sight gags. It’s one of my favorite Keaton shorts, so enjoy and celebrate this man who’s been entertaining us for 95 years.
