[1][2] The comic premise for The Goat emerges as a series of mistaken identities in which Keaton is the visual double of a murderer who is pursued by a posse.

Next Buster Keaton peers through a barred window into a police station where captured murderer "Dead Shot Dan" is about to have his picture taken for the "Rogue's Gallery".

[5] Keaton’s influence on St. Clair was transformative in terms of narrative style, control over gag configuration, rhythm and pacing, and an effective approach to coaching actors.

[6] Ruth Anne Dwyer argues that "so profound an effect had Buster Keaton" on St. Clair that the latter’s films can be appraised as either "pre"- or "post"-Keaton.

[7] St. Clair adapted Keaton’s development of "integrated comic structures" which served to cohere the gag elements and make them comprehensible in terms of a social conflict and its resolution.

[8] St. Clair’s early two-reelers for Mack Sennett studios, were an amalgam of largely unrelated gags and "flimsy plots".

The hero confronts a social problem in each episode, around which all the action occurs..."[10] Elements of these "Keatonesque" qualities would appear in St. Clair’s work for the remainder of his career.

[11] In 2016, the Dallas Chamber Symphony commissioned an original film score for The Goat from composer Jon Kull.