Rolling Stone

This is the second film I have seen starring Billy West, a comic who traded on completely ripping of the entire act of the far superior comedian Charlie Chaplin. The others were "The Hobo" and "The Rogue," and this is "Rolling Stone." It's almost become a game to see how many obvious synonyms for "Tramp" West can come up with. This two-reel comedy is significantly superior to the other two I've seen, but it's still a fairly undistinguished film starring man who can't hope to capture the magic of the man he's imitating.

This film is directed by a another great-comedian Charley -- Charles "Charley Chase" Parrot, who would go on to star in a very successful series of films himself, and who had earlier played small roles in Keystone films with the real Charlie Chaplin. Chase's influence can be felt, and there is a certain exceptional flair to a lot of the shots here: the opening shots panning up from Billy's shoes under his sandwich board, the filming of his clever dumpster-apartment, and the proto "mirror scene" with Billy and a look-alike, are all quite strikingly filmed for comedy effect.

Chase, I speculate, also could tell that Billy West could imitate Chaplin's costume and obvious mannerisms, but could never really inhabit the magical character that he did. As a result, a lot of this film's attempts at comedy are not drawn from dwelling on Chaplinesque pantomime routines (and what there are of these don't come off) but from taking a given character (a poor man's Chaplin) and putting him in a funny situation. He even doffs the tramp clothes for a significant portion of the film.

The story here may have had Chase's influence as well, as it is reminiscent of the kind of farcelike mistaken identity that would mark his own starring comedies: Billy West happens to look and dress quite a lot like a notorious Bolshevik revolutionary (this film did come out only two years after the Russian Revolution) -- perhaps a subtle suggestion that everybody in a bowler, big shoes, and a toothbrush moustache is not the genuine article.

This leads to some funny mix-ups with a big-bearded warden and his daughter, and the Communist himself which get a few laughs (when they don't descend into people randomly running around), but many of the gags also seem to come out of nowhere, with no rhyme or reason. Billy gets a job as a tour bus guide for no reason, and after passengers clamor for about two minutes for the ladder so they can get off, Billy picks a section and gives it to them, then the other sections suddenly give up wanting the ladder and just jump off. It undermines the joke. Later there is a long scene in which Billy comes up with ways to serve a table full of prisoners that doesn't really go anywhere.

This film has a few laughs to its credit and is respectable enough as a comedy, but it gets no respect as a pale imitation in an attempt to cash in on Chaplin's popularity.

Rolling Stone (1919)

* (out of 4)

Billy West is either loved or hated depending on how you feel about impersonators. West became very famous and perhaps very rich because of his impersonation of Chaplin's Tramp character and that's the character being played in this short. Here his Tramp gets thrown into prison after he's mistaken for a crazy bomber. That's pretty much all we have here in a story written by West and one I'd question if he actually wrote at all or if he just stood around and filmed a variety of scenes. I had seen bits and pieces of West and his Chaplin act but this was my first time viewing an entire short and I must admit that it was rather painful getting through this two-reeler. I'm not going to say West was a horrible actor since I haven't seen enough but this film here is at least on a very bad level. I might not have minded this short too much had it ran 9-minutes but stretched out to over twenty is a big problem as I started looking at the clock on my DVD player minutes into the film. I guess the impersonations are pretty spot on but to me that really doesn't matter for a couple reasons. For starters, nothing we see here is funny. We are given a certain brand of humor that is identifiable with Chaplin yet it's never funny here. The second problem is why would one want to watch an impersonator when the majority of Chaplin's films are out there in countless forms to view? This entire movie just struck me as being really, really bad and that includes the direction by Charley Chase (who also has a cameo). Chase was capable of being a good director and this short has none of his touches so I'm curious to know if West wasn't calling the shots here as well.

Billy West was a famous rip-off artist--literally. When Charlie Chaplin was world-famous and the public couldn't get enough of his shorts, several comics impersonated him--in an effort to fool the public into thinking these were Chaplin films or simply in an effort to capitalize on Chaplin's fame. The most famous of these was West--mostly because he did the best job in looking and acting like Chaplin.

"Rolling Stone" is included in a set of early Charley Chase films. However, unlike most of the films in the set, he only appears in the film in a VERY brief scene (this is according to IMDb and he does show up 3 minutes into the film). However, he did direct this short.

While West did not to his Chaplin knockoff in all his films, this is one of these dishonest films. And, because the character was stolen, I feel obliged to take off a point or two. This doesn't leave this film with very many points because the plot is a bit of a disappointment. It begins with Billy living in his dumpster and then getting mixed up with a bomb-throwing anarchist. Mistaken identity and the like occur but none of it's especially funny--though I did think the dog was pretty cute. But, the film did have a few mildly interesting moments--but probably not enough to recommend it.