Go West

Go West follows S. Quentin Quale, a smooth-talking swindler who heads west hoping to make his fortune. At the railway station he runs into Joe and Rusty Panello, two brothers whose dishonesty outstrips even his own; they relieve him of his money and end up travelling west alongside him. Once there, the three meet an old prospector whose apparently worthless land turns out to sit on the route of a planned railroad, making it suddenly valuable to the railway company. A crooked saloon owner schemes to get hold of the deed, drawing the newcomers into a long-running feud between rival families and land developers.

The film is a Marx Brothers comedy, with Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx playing Quale and the Panello brothers. Edward Buzzell directed, working from a screenplay by Irving Brecher, and Jack Cummings produced it for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. John Carroll, Diana Lewis and Walter Woolf King appear among the main cast, with forty-eight credited performers in all. The film runs eighty minutes and mixes comedy with western settings.

Released in December 1940, Go West holds a rating of 6.8 out of 10 on IMDb from around 6,100 votes, and 6.6 out of 10 on TMDB from 97 votes. Film critics gave it 6.6 out of 10 across 10 reviews, a score close to the audience ratings. It is the first of two films by Buzzell listed here, preceding Confidentially Connie.