Among other satisfactions to be gleaned from Randy Skretvedt's 1987 book on Laurel & Hardy, he includes lengthy excerpts from many of the L&H movies' "scripts," showing that they weren't done completely off-the-cuff, that there had to be an initial basis from which to work. Parodoxically, most of these script excerpts clearly demonstrate why many of these scripted bits never made it to the film's final cut.
Way Out West is no exception. Skredvedt's chapter on the movie details how radically different the film's opening would have been, as do portions of the script that are posted here and here, full of Indian stereotypes that were wisely excised by Stan (who found such racism abhorrent) and instead found their way to the Marx Brothers' later "answer" to this movie, Go West (1940). Read the excerpts for yourself, and see how much better the movie is without them.
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