Billy West

The wealthy Van Dyke family are constantly in the media for outrageous behavior, much to the frustration of the patriarch, Dan Van Dyke. His self-centered wife has a fondness for foreign imports, including "pet projects" like dancers and such and his spoiled children Tony and Carol have constant run-ins with the law. When Dan himself ends up in the clink for five years for tax evasion, he becomes bunk-mates with ex-bootlegger Joe "Spots" Ricardi. Ricardi lectures him on being such a push-over for an out-of-control family, so a dying Dan makes Ricardi his estate trustee once he is released from prison. Ricardi is then thrust into high society and must do everything he once nagged Dan to do.

Bank teller Barry Webster is driven to stealing bank funds by his mother-in-law who continually nags him about forcing her daughter Muriel to live in poverty...

Leon's ex-wife moves into the apartment next to him.

A sleazy lawyer's female assistant sets out to end his cheating ways.

A safecracker goes straight after doing a stretch for a bum rap. He agrees to do one last job for his "pals".

An arrogant boxer (Pat O'Brien) discovers his wife (Glenda Farrell) had a hand in his success.

Well respected local good guy, "Feet" Samuels finds himself heavily in debt due to an uncharacteristic gambling binge. Feet decides the only way to settle the bill is by selling his body to an ambitious doctor who agrees to allow him one last month to live life to the fullest, then kill himself.

An unpolished racketeer, whose racket is finding heirs for unclaimed fortunes, affects ethics and tea-drinking manners to win back the sweetheart who now works for his seemingly upright competitor.

A renegade reporter and a young heiress meet on a bus heading for New York, and end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops.

Although free spirit Helen Bauer does not believe in marriage, she consents to marry Don, but his infidelities cause her to also take on a lover.

An ex-con uses his street smarts to become a successful photojournalist.

Reporter Speed Morgan helps Flash Barrett escape from the police and this gets him into Flash's gang where he poses as a gangster. Flash and his gang head west guning for Bill Miller who failed to send some diamonds on to Flash. Speed hopes to bring Flash to justice but is in trouble when his true identity is revealed.

A New York tramp falls in love with the mayor's amnesiac girlfriend after rescuing her from a suicide attempt.

The Eagle uses sky writing to make threats against a corporation. Nathan Gregory owns a travelling fairground and is thought to be the Eagle. Craig McCoy is a pilot who goes looking for the Eagle when Gregory turns up missing.

Two small town widows bring their children to Hollywood, where their children become competing film stars. The girl is sweet, the boy is a killjoy sissy. For publicity, the rival families go to London to meet a middle European boy King. The three kids decide they need to escape their stifling lives and run away to the docks and join a gang.

Billy Davis discovers that his father's bakery business is in serious financial trouble and leaves college in order to help his family.

A recent college graduate (Billy West) inherits a large sum of money, as well as a dive on the rough side of town. The will states that, in the event of Billy's death, two thugs get the money and the 'Cafe', and the thugs try, through various means, to see that Billy meets his demise. But Billy manages to thwart their efforts, with the help of a pretty young girl.

A recent college graduate (Billy West) inherits a large sum of money, as well as a dive on the rough side of town. The will states that, in the event of Billy's death, two thugs get the money and the 'Cafe', and the thugs try, through various means, to see that Billy meets his demise. But Billy manages to thwart their efforts, with the help of a pretty young girl.

Two nutty bellhops raise havoc at a posh hotel.

A clumsy fiddler plays at an audition with a grouchy teathrical impresario, played by Oliver Hardy.

A clumsy fiddler plays at an audition with a grouchy teathrical impresario, played by Oliver Hardy.

Billy West comedy produced by Cumberland and distributed by Arrow.

FIDDLIN AROUND' (1925) (Starring Babe Hardy).

A 1925 silent comedy.

A 1925 silent comedy.

A paperhanger and his helper arrive at a sanitarium to do a job. The chubby paperhanger leaves most of the work to his thin assistant, who tries gamely but usually makes a mess. Various patients at the asylum interrupt and complicate the work, and, to the dismay of the lazy boss, a nurse is attracted to the helper. Amidst all the paste, ladders, brushes, and the images of circus and jungle animals on the wallpaper, is there any way this job gets done to the satisfaction of the sanitarium's director?

The daughter of a local store fancies a man, but her father wants her to end up with a boxing champion.

Billy West comedy for Arrow.

Billy West comedy for Arrow.

After five years as the best of the Chaplin imitators, Billy West struck out with his own comedy character, a middle-class man in a nice suit and a fedora -- but with the mustache. These movies involved him in cartoonish situations in which he executed some extended gags very nicely -- in this one he does the one in which the water pump only works when he's not ready for it and another in which he can't catch a fish with some expensive gear, while the boy next to him catches whoppers with a stick and a bent pin -- and gradually moved behind the camera.

After five years as the best of the Chaplin imitators, Billy West struck out with his own comedy character, a middle-class man in a nice suit and a fedora -- but with the mustache. These movies involved him in cartoonish situations in which he executed some extended gags very nicely -- in this one he does the one in which the water pump only works when he's not ready for it and another in which he can't catch a fish with some expensive gear, while the boy next to him catches whoppers with a stick and a bent pin -- and gradually moved behind the camera.

Billy West comes home and is greeted in so many ways.

Billy West comes home and is greeted in so many ways.

Billy gets into trouble with a couple of cops by littering in the park, and must use all his ingenuity to elude them.

Billy gets into trouble with a couple of cops by littering in the park, and must use all his ingenuity to elude them.

Billy West wanders into town and is made sheriff because the older ones got killed or ran away.

A Billy West slapstick comedy.

Charlie stays at a seaside lodging house frequented by sailors. He gets involved with a gang of crooks when a sea captain attempts to kidnap his landlady's daughter.

A Chaplin-like tramp is mistaken for a Bolshevik

A Chaplin-like tramp is mistaken for a Bolshevik

A tramp enters a cabaret and orders a drink, but then is thrown out when he cannot pay for it. After trying again, he is told by the manager that if he wants to avoid being charged and sent to jail, he will have to work.

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

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

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

'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.

Imagine this, and you are in the world of Billy West, who looks like Chaplin, and acts something like Chaplin, but does not think like him, or come close to moving like him. In this film, West escapes a couple of cops, and fights for the Mabel Normand imitation with Oliver Hardy (who in this film is an Eric Campbell imitation). The dynamic between West in Hardy is more Popeye and Bluto (without the funny gags). The only original jokes involve our heroine's romantic assaults on Hardy's mustache.

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.

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.

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.

A Fake Chaplin movie with Billy West as the tramp.

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.

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.

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.

The Hero is a 1917 silent comedy film featuring Billy West & Oliver Hardy.

Billy West tries to court/swindle Little Nell (big Oliver Hardy in drags). but her father is in the way.