- How many iconic train scenes did Buster Keaton produce? I can think of several without really trying, and his short film The Goat contains one of the best. In it, a train speeds toward the camera, coming closer and closer. As it approaches, it slows to reveal a decidedly bored-looking Keaton riding on the cow catcher. Honestly, I can't think of any way they could have filmed this scene without literally having Keaton ride on the front of a train as it sped toward a camera. Maybe the key is either to have a conductor who you really trust or a camera that you don't really care about. Regardless, it's an amazing scene in a career that was full of them.
- The rest of the short is also terrific -- one of Keaton's best, which is saying something. The setup is that Keaton finds himself mistaken for a notorious criminal named "Dead Shot" Dan (played by co-director Malcolm St. Clair). Although Keaton is good at concealing himself temporarily, his hiding places have a strange way of becoming revealed, as when the car he's under pulls away or the policeman he's hiding behind takes a break. In one of the film's funniest shots, he grabs on to a car's spare tire only to discover that it's not even attached. Naturally, he ends up at dinner with the police chief (Joe Roberts) who's been stalking him and whose daughter (Virginia Fox) he rescued. If you think he'll hesitate to use the chief as a springboard to leap through the transom, you haven't seen enough of Buster Keaton.
