Billy WestFilmography

Occupation:: Actor, Producer
Biography:: Comic actor Billy West is best remembered as one of Chaplin's finest imitators. Born in Russia but raised in Chicago after age two, West started out in vaudeville at age 14 using the name William B. West. He became a Chaplin imitator in 1915 and his talent allowed him to break into films the...Read More

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The Road to Wellville

Crew: Carpenter

Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Bridget Fonda, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack, Dana Carvey

Synopsis: This adaptation of the comic novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle is the story of real-life Corn Flakes inventor Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (Anthony Hopkins), an eccentric health nut in the early 20th century. Convinced of the benefits of holistic health practices (mostly involving irrigation of the bowels Read More

1994
The Further Perils of Laurel and Hardy

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase

Synopsis: The second of Robert Youngson's compilations of the silent comedies of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, The Further Perils of Laurel & Hardy suffers a bit from too much repetition and gee-whiz obvious narration. Still, the vignettes offered herein are first-rate, as fresh and funny as they were when Read More

1967
Motive for Revenge

Actors: Donald Cook, Irene Hervey, Doris Lloyd, Edwin Maxwell, LeStrange Millman

Synopsis: After a burst of creativity in 1933 and 1934, independent Majestic Pictures had settled into the usual "B"-picture rut by 1935. One of the last Majestic efforts was Motive for Revenge, starring Donald Cook as hapless bank teller Barry Webster. Plagued by a domineering mother-in-law (Doris Lloyd) Read More

1935
She Couldn't Take It

Actors: George Raft, Joan Bennett, Walter Connolly, Billie Burke, Lloyd Nolan

Synopsis: When he's shipped off to prison on a tax-evasion charge, millionaire Van Dyke (Walter Connolly) breathes a sigh of relief: at least he'll be free of his dizzy, spendthrift wife (Billie Burke) and spoiled-rotten daughter Carol (Joan Bennett). Once behind bars, Van Dyke strikes up a friendship with Read More

1935
Jimmy the Gent

Actors: James Cagney, Bette Davis, Alice White, Allen Jenkins, Alan Dinehart, Arthur Hohl

Synopsis: James Cagney runs a shady missing-heir tracing service, occasionally providing phony heirs in order to collect his fee. He suffers a tinge of jealousy when he takes a gander at the offices of a legitimate tracing firm, where his former girlfriend (Bette Davis) has taken a job. Jimmy soon learns Read More

1934
Twenty Million Sweethearts

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, Allen Jenkins, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: A satire on radio crooners, Twenty Million Sweethearts stars Dick Powell as a singing waiter--fake handlebar mustache and all. Publicity man Pat O'Brien discovers Powell and gets him a radio gig, leading to nationwide adulation for the nonplused tenor. All of this jeopardizes Powell's happy Read More

1934
He Was Her Man

Actors: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Victor Jory, Frank Craven, Harold Huber

Synopsis: In this crime drama, Flicker Hayes (James Cagney) is a safecracker who has just been released following a stretch in prison; after his last job, his partners Dan Curley (Bradley Page) and Red Deering (Ralf Harolde) set him up, and now Hayes is determined to get revenge. Fooling them into believing Read More

1934
Jealousy

Actors: Nancy Carroll, George Murphy, Donald Cook, Raymond Walburn, Arthur Hohl

Synopsis: In this drama, a fighter's fiancee refuses to marry him until he can overcome his insane jealousy. He does and they marry. The jealousy resurfaces when he finds his wife and her boss in a hotel room. He goes mad with rage and kills her boss. His wife is blamed for the killing. Just before the Read More

1934
Gold Diggers of 1933

Actors: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell

Synopsis: The second talkie version of the Avery Hopwood's theatrical war-horse The Golddiggers of Broadway, Gold Diggers of 1933 was the second of three back-to-back 1933 Warner Bros. musicals benefiting from the genius of Busby Berkeley. The basic plot is retained from the Hopwood play: Showgirls Joan Blondell Read More

1933
The Diamond Trail

Actors: Rex Bell, Frances Rich, Lloyd Whitlock, Bud Osborne, Norman Feusier

Synopsis: In this action film, a New York reporter follows a group of East Coast jewel thieves trying to move their operation to the West Coast. The intrepid journalist tries to infiltrate the ring, but is quickly discovered. Mayhem ensue. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1933
Picture Snatcher

Actors: James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, Patricia Ellis, Alice White, Ralf Harolde, Robert E. O'Connor

Synopsis: An admirably tough B-picture enlivened by an energetic James Cagney performance, Picture Snatcher stars Cagney as Danny Kean, a former gangster who has decided to go straight after a stretch in the big house. Danny has fallen for Patricia (Patricia Ellis), the daughter of the cop who put him away (Robert Emmett O'Connor Read More

1933
Winner Take All

Actors: James Cagney, Marian Nixon, Guy Kibbee, Clarence Muse, Virginia Bruce

Synopsis: James Cagney stars as a popular prizefighter who loses his winnings through too much partying and too many women. Cagney's fans finance the boxer's regenerative stay at a New Mexico health resort. For the sake of pretty, poverty-stricken Marian Nixon, Cagney enters into a return bout. He splits Read More

1932
Shadow of the Eagle [Serial]

Synopsis: Mascot produced their serials fast and furious with little concern for believability, acting prowess, or technical niceties. Shadow of the Eagle is neither the best nor worst of the bunch, but rather typical of the company's hit-and-miss methods. The acting is occasionally downright embarrassing Read More

1932
Fearless Harry

Crew: Producer

Actors: Earl McCarthy

1926
Hard Boiled Yeggs

1926
The Joke's on You

Crew: Producer

Actors: Billy West, Ethlyn Gibson, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: Once again, Billy West borrows Oliver Hardy away from Bobby Ray (West was producing Ray's films, along with starring in his own). West plays a husband who is suffering from stress, and from his wife's awful cooking. The doctor advises him to take a vacation, so he and the wife (Ethlyn Gibson) go Read More

1925
Rivals

Crew: Producer

Actors: Billy West, Oliver Hardy, Ethlyn Gibson, Ernie Young

Synopsis: While comedian Billy West was producing the "Mirthquake" comedies starring Oliver Hardy and Bobby Ray, he would occasionally borrow Hardy for one of his own pictures. In this two-reeler, West and Hardy are rivals for the affection of Ethlyn Gibson. The two men spend most of the film trying to foil Read More

1925
They All Fall

Crew: Producer

Actors: Bobby Ray, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: Although there's no longer any way to tell for sure (many records have been lost, and nitrate film negatives disintegrated), this seems to be the last time Oliver Hardy and Bobby Ray would appear in a film together (within a couple of years, Hardy would be teamed up with Stan Laurel, creating Read More

1925
Stick Around

Crew: Producer

Actors: Bobby Ray, Oliver Hardy, Hazel Newman, Harry McCoy

Synopsis: Diminutive Bobby Ray and portly Oliver Hardy play employees of the Blatz and Blatz Interior Design company, hired to wallpaper Dr. Brown's sanatarium. When an inmate accidentally drops alcohol into the hospital's water supply, the two drunken wallpaperers go at their work with a vengeance. A Read More

1925
Fiddling Around

Actors: Billy West, Oliver Hardy, Ethlyn Gibson

Synopsis: Oliver Hardy played the "heavy" for Billy West, both while West was known as the premier Charles Chaplin imitator, and several years later, after West had dropped the Chaplin trappings. This latter-day West comedy was made a couple of years before Hardy teamed up with Stan Laurel. Hardy is a stage Read More

1925
He's in Again

Actors: Billy West, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: Although this two-reel Billy West comedy was released under the banner of the Bull's Eye Film Corporation, it's likely that it was made while the comic was still working for King Bee. Oliver Hardy, who did not join West and the other King Bee stock players in later endeavors, also appears in the Read More

1918
The Hobo

Synopsis: Considering that Billy West was the premier impersonator of Charles Chaplin's tramp character, it's no surprise that he'd wind up in a film called The Hobo. The plot to this particular two-reel offering is especially Chaplinesque. Hobo Billy rides the rails and when he lands in the yard, he is Read More

1917
The Living Death

Actors: Fred Turner, Billy West, Edward Peil Sr.

Synopsis: Having lost his wife and son, Dr. Farrell (Fred A. Turner) focuses all his devotion on his surviving daughter Naida (Billie West). He takes her away with him to an isolated home on the California coast, where she meets their neighbor Tom O'Day (Edward J. Peil). He falls in love with Naida and Read More

1915
The Highbinders

Actors: Signe Auen, Eugene Pallette, Walter Long, Tom Wilson, Billy West

Synopsis: San Francisco's Chinatown is the scene for this two-reel melodrama of crime and miscegenation. The cruel saloonkeeper Pat Gallagher (Walter Long) wants to marry off his daughter Maggie (Billie West) to a gangster, but she runs away and hides in a neighborhood shop. There she is persuaded to marry Read More

1915
Adventures of Hairbreadth Harry

Synopsis: A set of three short spoofs of the early melodramas put out by the movie industry, these are entitled "Sawdust Baby," "Fearless Harry," and "Rudolph's Revenge." ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More