Coco de Chicago

This very old western satire short has Harry Lloyd as a hero cowboy named Billy Blazes who has to take on a bad guy named Crooked Charlie. It's about what you would expect, just a bunch of silly physical gags and a spoof of old western movie tropes, but it's good for what it is even though it is obviously very dated.

When Harold Lloyd switched from his Lonesome Luke character to his "Glasses" character in 1917, it was so he could appear in a wider variety of stories. Luke's ill-fitting assortment of clothes -- visually an anti-Charie-Chaplin type-cast in lower-class and bum characters. By adopting his more normal -looking garb, he could offer more situations.

For a while, he did not. He continued offering the same old gags-in-a-setting film; gags at the beach in BY THE SAD SEA WAVES; gags in a park in TAKE A CHANCE. However, by 1919, he was actually doing stories, and with this one, we see a fine integration of high-speed gag construction and story. Oh, true enough, it's a pure burlesque of western stories, with Harold as the gunslinger, Bebe Daniels as the pretty barmaid who is menaced and Snub Pollard as the sheriff. However, he was ready, and in a few months, he would switch from two-reelers to three-reelers and full stories and take the take the industry by storm.

This one reel comedy is a pretty good parody of the westerns of its time. It's nothing fancy, but it takes a light, upbeat approach and has some funny gag ideas. Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels always seem to work together well, and Snub Pollard is also here, in a smaller role.

Lloyd plays the title character, who is a parody of the kinds of western heroes common both at the time and in many other eras. The character is probably based more than anything on the kinds of characters played by William S. Hart, but you wouldn't have to be familiar with Hart's movies to be able to enjoy most of "Billy Blazes".

The story squeezes quite an assortment of familiar western elements and themes into 13 minutes or so of film, and it does a good job with most of them. The big showdown between Billy and the villain is played strictly for laughs, and it features some clever turns.

It's the mining town of the ironically named Peaceful Vale. Sheriff 'Gun Shy' Gallagher is not that helpful. Crooked Charley is the true ruler of the town. He demands payment from the father and daughter who own the local saloon. He kidnaps the daughter Nell. Billy Blazes (Harold Lloyd) arrives in time to save the day.

It's a 12 minute short. I don't really buy Harold Lloyd for this character. He should be a bumbling peacenik who lucks into winning the fight. He still does some high stunts walking on the roofs. I can't tell if he's doing his own stunt riding. It's fine, but not what I want from Lloyd.

Harold Lloyd parodies the William S. Hart stoic Western hero prototype, resulting in an interesting one-reeler rather than an uproarious one; the later and somewhat similar AN EASTERN WESTERNER (1920) is, however, a superior effort because it was fitted to the star's typical formula. Bebe Daniels is once again the heroine/damsel in distress (she made a staggering 146 shorts with Lloyd according to the IMDb - apparently, only a handful of these have survived to make it into New Line's DVD collection devoted to the comic genius!).

Incidentally, I had first come across BILLY BLAZES, ESQ. while in Hollywood late last year on TCM, as part of an all-night Harold Lloyd marathon shown in conjunction with the release of the 7-Disc Set (compiling 28 of his films made between 1919 and 1936). In the end, it easily emerges as the least among 7 of the star's Silent comedy shorts that I've watched up to this point.