The Goat

The Goat (1921)

A great short delivered with wit, imagination and hilarious physical comedy

A series of misadventures occur when Buster is mistaken for a criminal on the lam.

Date of release
1921-05-15
TMDB
7.2 / 10 (186)
Runtime
23m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Malcolm St. Clair, Buster Keaton

Casting

Interesting facts

The Goat is a 1921 American two-reel silent comedy film written, and co-directed by Malcolm St. Clair and Buster Keaton and starring Keaton.

Background

St. Clair, who directed films for the Mack Sennett studios between 1919 and 1921, was fired and later rehired by Sennett. As such, St. Clair directed films for other studios during this period, among these Rainbow studio’s He Loved Like He Lied (1920), Reelcraft’s Welcome Home (1920) and Buster Keaton Productions' The Goat.

Keaton’s influence on St. Clair was transformative in terms of narrative style, control over gag configuration, rhythm and pacing, and an effective approach to coaching actors.

Ruth Anne Dwyer argues that "so profound an effect had Buster Keaton" on St. Clair that the latter’s films can be appraised as either "pre"- or "post"-Keaton.

St. Clair adapted Keaton’s development of "integrated comic structures" which served to cohere the gag elements and make them comprehensible in terms of a social conflict and its resolution.

St. Clair’s early two-reelers for Mack Sennett studios were amalgamations of largely unrelated gags and "flimsy plots".

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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