Billy Blazes, Esq.
About Billy Blazes, Esq.
In Peaceful Vale, gunplay is so ordinary that twenty minutes have passed without a murder. A gang leader harasses a saloonkeeper and holds his daughter, Nell. Billy Blazes rides in, frees the father, and gets Nell out. A title set three years later shows them with a large family whose children are plainly older than three.
Cast & crew
More about Billy Blazes, Esq.
Hal Roach directed and produced this Harold Lloyd short, a parody of Westerns. Wikipedia credits the script to H. M. Walker. Wikidata lists Roach as writer. Walter Lundin photographed it. Pathé Exchange released it on July 6, 1919. Running time is 13 minutes. The catalog names the gang leader Crooked Charley.
Themes
Look
Walter Lundin photographed the Peaceful Vale street and the ride-in.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
A print survives in the British Film Institute archive.
Notes
- Billy does not enter until five minutes into the 13-minute short.
- Bebe Daniels plays Nell. Snub Pollard is in the cast. Noah Young is uncredited on Wikipedia's cast list.
- The closing gag is that the children cannot be only three years old.
- Sammy Brooks and Billy Fay are billed in the catalog.
Scenes
- The town is introduced as having gone twenty minutes without a murder.
- Billy arrives and pulls Nell and her father clear of the gang.
- The epilogue family is too old for the title card.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-billy-blazes-esq-)
- British Film Institute
