Directing
Props, the stage man, and his assistant at the Orpheum Theater, Plunkville divide their time equally between drinking and attention to duty. Trouble starts when the new acts arrive. The Wiggle sisters, a Hawaiian act, demand the star dressing room but Props turns them down, but relents when Babe, the strong man, and his beautiful wife, Ethel Burton because he is smitten. Once the show begins Props is forever getting in the way of the performers and his bibulous assistant has an unfortunate propensity for dropping the curtain at the wrong moments. Things only get crazier from there.
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.
The Hero is a 1917 silent comedy film featuring Billy West & Oliver Hardy.
When their father is reported missing at the front during World War I, Jane and Katherine are stamped and sent by parcel post across the country to their Aunt Lucille Forrest in New Jersey. The two girls manage to smuggle their dog into the mail bag as well. Aunt Lucille is in love with Lt. Tom Hayes, but she is angry with him after he resigns his commission at the start of the war. She does not know that Tom is in the Secret Service, and she becomes jealous of a female spy whom Tom is trailing. Jane and Katherine's mischievous pranks finally assist in capturing the spy and the secret plans, and getting Aunt Lucille back together with Tom.
Baby Peggy, one of the biggest child stars in movie history, does not disappoint in this charming silent comedy, even though it only exists in fragmentary form. Through the short, she interacts with a number of animals, especially a goose she wants to cook.
Jack Duffy is terrified of horses, so when Gayle Lloyd wants to lift the mortgage by running her horse in the harness race that Saturday, he's chosen to drive the rig. The rest of the movie is about the farcical mishaps on the way to his inevitable victory..
An ordinary day - so an eventful one - of Tom Katt, a young man who works as a drugstore owner's assistant: his - very acrobatic - bike ride to his place of work; the - fanciful - way he performs his job; the - ingenious - subterfuge he finds to help his employer, who has money problems; the - swift - way he escapes the cops chasing him...
A Paramount-Christie comedy from 1928.
Harry is a hobo, one step ahead of the law. After accidentally foiling a purse snatcher, he cadges a ride on a flatbed truck, is knocked out when a wax figure falls on him during the ride, and is carried into a museum by someone thinking he's another manikin. Inside, it takes him a while to figure out that he's among dummies. Then, two enterprising jewel thieves arrive to steal the museum director's priceless ruby. Cops are on hand as well: when the ruby goes missing, Harry may be the perfect fall guy. Can Harry stay away from the cops, foil the theft, and behave heroically in front of the museum director's daughter, the same woman whose purse he saved that morning?
Short King Bee Studios slapstick comedy featuring Billy West and Oliver Hardy
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.
Winnie Winkle's wee brother Perry captains a rag tag sandlot team.
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.
Tired Feet (1933) is a Harry Langdon comedy short done for Educational Films.
Clancy's Kosher Wedding is a 1927 silent comedy film directed by Arvid E. Gillstrom.
'The Rogue' casts West as the slavey in a boarding-house (not a very Chaplinesque role) overseen by a landlady who seems to be a cross between Alice Davenport and Marie Dressler, with a dash of Hattie Jacques. He crosses paths with a counterfeit count (White) and a stolen violin worth $20,000.
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.
A Fake Chaplin movie with Billy West as the tramp.
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.
Would-be photographer Harry gets his big chance when a newspaper wants pictures of a prominent gangster and his girl. Harry and another photographer first visit the gangster's girl, and then wait at the scene of an expected robbery. But before they can get the pictures they want, they must first distract a policeman whose presence would otherwise deter the gangster from appearing.
