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...
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.
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 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...
Ethelyn Gibson has run away from daddy Ted Lorch because he wants to sell her to Leo White, King of Little Italy, for his music hall. So she dresses as a man and runs into Billy West in this scattershot burlesque.
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 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 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...
Billy meets a charity worker named Ethelyn, who raises contributions by flirting with men. Just as she's about to deposit her money in a bank a thief grabs it and runs, and Billy comes to the rescue, although a cop assumes he's the culprit.
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.
