Pest from the West

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Pest from the West is a 1939 short comedy film, starring Buster Keaton. In it, Keaton (addressed only as "Sir" in the film) plays an international traveler who falls for a senorita and sets out to win her.

This was the first film Keaton starred in for Columbia Pictures, and was a condensed remake of his English-made feature film The Invader (1935). Keaton's silent-era writer Clyde Bruckman collaborated on the screenplay, and comedy veteran Del Lord directed. The supporting cast features Columbia regulars Lorna Gray, Gino Corrado, Richard Fiske, Bud Jamison, Eddie Laughton, and Ned Glass. with the voices of short-subject stars Charley Chase and Curly Howard heard on the soundtrack.

Much of Pest from the West was filmed on location at Balboa, California (Keaton repeatedly falls off his boat, into Balboa Bay). The Mexican-village settings were adapted from sets used in Columbia's 1937 feature film Lost Horizon.

Pest from the West was a huge hit in theaters, and earned rave reports from exhibitors. Keaton starred in nine more Columbia shorts, the last of which was She's Oil Mine, released in 1941. Like Pest from the West, this last Columbia borrowed from an older Keaton feature (The Passionate Plumber).