Billy Blazes, Esq.

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.