A great example of the comedy of Harold Lloyd is to be found in this short subject, An Eastern Westerner. After getting in trouble once too often, Harold's dad sends him out west where men are men and Harold will profit by their example.

Unlike most tenderfeet our west films, Harold never drops his eastern garb and stays true to himself. Of course immediately upon arriving in Piute Pass he makes an enemy of the town boss, Noah Young, a silent screen villain in the best Snidely Whiplash tradition. As is stated in the title, he owns half the town and bullies the rest with his hired men.

He's even got sweet and innocent Mildred Davis who eventually became Mrs. Harold Lloyd in real life under his thumb. He's going to marry her and she is agreeing because Young is holding her father prisoner.

All that changes with Harold on the scene. He maybe an eastern dude, but street smarts are street smarts on a western or eastern street. I think you can figure where this is going.

An Eastern Westerner is a great example of Harold Lloyd's everyman character who rises to the occasion in all of his films.

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.

I found all the sequences in this film to be very funny. It is one of the earlier examples of the chase sequences Harold was developing that would really come into an art form last in GIRL SHY & SPEEDY. It is fine fun, & has some examples of gags LLoyd did not use in later films that are pretty funny. Nice thing is the pacing, which is not quite as frantic as earlier BUMPING INTO Broadway even though the films are about the same length. In a way, this reminds me some of BILLY BLAZES, ESQ. in the western sequences, but the ones in this film show an improvement over the Tom Mix parody of 1919. Some of the sequences in this are laugh out loud funny. If you get a chance to, enjoy this one.