One of my all time favorites.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Harold Lloyd plays an aimless New York playboy. He's supposed to be studying at the YMCA but instead, he's dancing at the nightclubs. In frustration, his father sends him to his uncle's ranch in the wild, wild west. In the town of Piute Pass, he is taken with a local gal. Her father is being held prisoner by local thug "Tiger Lip" Tompkins. Tompkins owns half the town and leads the Masked Angels.This early Hal Roach short has his best act Lloyd doing his every man. It's not quite a nice innocent guy but he's plenty likeable. The plot is simple. It's a weak easterner trying to make it in the tough old west. There are some simple action stunt sequences. It has good slapstick fun. It is a short which limits any complexity. This is a simple physical comedy.

"An Eastern Westerner" is a 24-minute black-and-white short film from 1920, so it will soon have its 100th anniversary. The names Hal Roach, Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis and Noah Young will tell you immediately that this is a black-and-white silent film if the production year hasn't already. Of course, it is an American movie and except Young (who wasn't much older) all the protagonists I mentioned earlier were still under the age of 30, but very successful already in their respective fields, despite the age. Western films were apparently very popular already at this point (shortly after World War I) and this movie here has several western scenes and components in terms of costumes and sets for example. But the story is not really that good. I do believe that silent film superstar Lloyd had decent comedic talent, but nothing really made a difference in his purely comedic films. He was at his best when he could bring in some emotion and manage to evoke strong feelings of joy or sadness in his audience. This component is missing here entirely I must say. That's why I give it a thumbs down, even if it is among Lloyd's most known short films. Not recommended.

I suppose of the silent comedians Harold Lloyd is my second favourite after Buster Keaton (For me, Chaplin's tramp was too mean-spirited early on to ever be likable, and Chaplin himself never comes across as a particularly likable person). In this two-reel comedy Lloyd plays a frivolous playboy type who is sent out west (and back in time, apparently) when his old man finally tires of his errant ways. Out west, young Harold comes up against all manner of ne'er-do-wells, including the bullying saloon owner who has locked up the father of the young girl Harold has taken a shine to and won't let him out until she, well, lets him in (if you know what I mean).I wonder whether Lloyd was trying to incorporate an element of Keaton's athleticism into his role here. He certainly displays some impressive acrobatics as he tries to elude capture by a band of cut-throats wearing blankets over their heads. This finale is the film's high point, although the level of humour is quite high throughout – and the trick with rolling cigarettes one-handed and producing a lighted match from a cardsharp's waistcoat pocket will probably have you laughing.

For all that it's unrefined much of the time, this short Harold Lloyd comedy is funny and entertaining. After a slightly slow start, it has some very good material and some entertaining scenes. It also gives Lloyd a chance to perform the kinds of material that played to his strengths and that pleased his audiences.The first part shows Lloyd as a lackadaisical young man whose family sends him out west to live with his uncle. The early sequences are a bit routine, but they have some good gags in them. Things really get moving once Lloyd arrives in the west, has to adjust to western ways, and then has to contend with the town bully (Noah Young, in a role well suited to him).The story contains some good gags, and it builds up to a manic chase scene that has some very good moments. It's not as polished as Lloyd's later features, but it's pretty amusing.