The Stranger

The Stranger 1918

5.50

After a luckless prospecting trip, Billy starts homeward across the desert, mounted on his little burro with his pick, shovel and pack strapped up behind him. Finally he comes in sight of Red Dog Gulch and, hungry and thirsty, he pushes on toward the city. Susie is the daughter of the town drunkard. She starts out on her horse for a little ride, and a little way from town is attacked by Pedro and Little Casino, two Mexicans, who try to steal her horse. Billy happens along, runs the Mexicans off and takes Susie back to town.

1918

The Scholar

The Scholar 1918

4.20

Short King Bee Studios slapstick comedy featuring Billy West and Oliver Hardy

1918

The Hobo

The Hobo 1917

4.50

Billy is a hobo who hangs around the train station. He creates disruption in the ticket office, at the lunch counter, and in the lives of some of the customers.

1917

The Chief Cook

The Chief Cook 1917

4.50

The film opens in the lobby of a small hotel, where the desk clerk/owner (Budd Ross) is addressing three members of staff: the cook, the waiter and the bellboy. It is obvious from their reactions, particularly the cook (Leo White) that whatever was said did not go down too well. His animated arms knock down the man standing behind him repeatedly until all three servants simultaneously quit. They storm off into the adjoining kitchen where a slavery maid (Blanche White) is on the floor scrubbing the floor. The men all trip over her, moan briefly and then leave.

1917

The Candy Kid

The Candy Kid 1917

4.50

A Fake Chaplin movie with Billy West as the tramp.

1917

The Villain

The Villain 1917

5.50

In The Villain, Billy attempted something a little different. He's still imitating Chaplin, but this time he's playing the wicked, top-hatted Charlie found in some of his earliest Keystone appearances (e.g. Mabel at the Wheel), the ones where Charlie himself seemed to be imitating the studio's recently departed Ford Sterling. Throughout this short there is much spoofing of old-time melodramas, a frequent motif of Sterling's comedies.

1917

The Pest

The Pest 1917

5.30

The Pest (aka The Freeloader) is a 1917 silent comedy film featuring Oliver Hardy and starring Billy West in one of his "Charlie Chaplin" rip-off roles.

1917

Bright and Early

Bright and Early 1918

4.60

Billy West as does fairly random series of gags as a bellboy in a rather poor hotel run by Oliver Hardy.

1918

Playmates

Playmates 1918

6.00

A comedy inspired by Charles Chaplin's "Easy Street" (1917).

1918

Cupid's Rival

Cupid's Rival 1917

5.00

A bumbling janitor in a fleabag hotel drives the residents crazy, and a poor artist believes that his girlfriend is having an affair with a wealthy artist living across the hall, and takes unorthodox measures to find out what's going on.

1917