Billy Engle

Starring comedienne Alice Ardell, whose persona included wearing traditionally masculine garb, who finds herself initiated into a secret flapper society full of bizarre rituals. This zany film again features cross-dressing, including men wearing girdles and donning lipstick.

Comedy starring Jack Duffy and Anne Cornwall, featured in James Roots' 100 Essential Film Comedies

Mr. Schmidt's costume store is bankrupt because he spends his time on Rube Goldberg-style inventions; the creditors send a young manager who falls for Schmidt's niece Louise, but she'll have none of him. Schmidt's friends Ted, Queenie, and some goofy firemen try to help out; things come to a slapstick head when Louise needs rescuing from a fire.

When the Nevada Kid gets caught in a stage robbery, the gang leader Cherokee gets him released by forging a petition to the Governor. The Kid tries to go straight but the stage he is guarding gets robbed. When the Sheriff jails Cherokee who was not in on the robbery, the Kid gets caught effecting Cherokee's escape and finds himself in jail again.

An easy-going cowboy is mistaken by the townsfolk for a notorious gunman. The cowboy decides it would be best to leave town, until he meets the gunman's girlfriend.

Jack Lane is returning from the East after an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a loan to pay off the mortgage on his father's ranch. On the train, he meets Ellen Rand, who is smitten at the sight of her first real cowboy. Later he learns that she is the nurse who is to care for his paralytic father, growing weaker at the prospect of losing his ranch. Jack plans to enter the local rodeo to earn the money, though Morton Kane, who holds the mortgage and has secretly discovered oil on the ranch, plots with his son Ross to keep him from the events.

Jack Howard, returning from the war, learns that his father, Sheriff Howard, has been killed by an unknown assailant, and he induces the mayor of Gold Strike to swear him in as sheriff.

Jimmy Jump is hired as chauffeur by a lady who wishes to make her husband jealous.

A movie cameraman is on the lookout for new material but a rival plans to copy everything he films.

Jimmy Jump gets rather wet.

The stooges are down and out. With a cop chasing them, they flee into an artists studio where they are mistaken for students. The cop continues to hunt for them and they use a variety of disguises and tactics to elude him. A wild clay throwing fight ends the film.

Set in the civil war, the stooges are spies for the north. They impersonate southern officers and infiltrate the enemy ranks to get valuable information. On the run when they are discovered, they hide in a cannon and are blown back to their northern headquarters.

Charlie Mason and Rusty Fleming are star reporters on a Chicago tabloid who are romantically involved as well. Although skilled in ferreting out great stories, they often behave in an unprofessional and immature manner. After their shenanigans cause their frustrated city editor to resign, the publisher promotes Charlie to the job, a decision based on the premise that only a slacker would be able crack down on other shirkers and underachievers. His pomposity soon alienates most of his co-workers and causes Rusty to move to New York. Charlie resigns and along with gangster friend Smiles Benson tries to win Rusty back before she marries a stuffy society author.

Middle-class housewife Kay Miniver deals with petty problems. She and her husband Clem watch her Oxford-educated son Vin court Carol Beldon, the charming granddaughter of the local nobility as represented by Lady Beldon. Then the war comes and Vin joins the RAF.

Earl Mohan and Billy Engle are paired in a Mutt & Jeff-style comedy.

Al is told to deliver a radiophone message to a certain business man. A gang of wicked looking plotters endeavor to capture him and steal the message. A long chase follows and ends with the safe delivery of the message and the arrest of the thugs.

It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

Alan Mitchell returns to New York to work for his father Walter, the owner of a fashion house that designs and manufactures dresses. To stay non-union, Walter has hired Artie Ravidge, a hood who uses strong-arm tactics to keep the employees in line.

Inventor Ignatius Pollard develops a new "Pavement Polisher" to clean the streets, but a demonstration of the device does not go as planned.

A diver saves his best friend's life but loses his own arm in doing so. Later, unable to find work because of his missing arm, he is forced to go to work for a criminal searching for lost treasures. Meanwhile his friend, who has since become a policeman, finds himself assigned to break up the crook's operation and bring in his gang--including the man who saved his life.

A young turn-of-the-century newspaper man finds he can get hold of the next day's paper. This brings more problems than fortune, especially as his new girlfriend is part of a phony clairvoyant act.

Charley is called upon to go out with his boss on a date with the boss' mistress, to act as a beard.

When a bottle of hair tonic renders him bald, Jimmie is mistaken for a famous French beautician and is called upon to demonstrate his skills.

An odd little one reel comedy starring Earl Mohan and Billy Engle, from the Hal Roach Studio. Directed by Tay Garnett.

A magazine reporter exposes a crooked District Attorney, resulting in his trial. Complications ensue, however, when the man is acquitted.

Fourth release in the "Confessions of a Chorus Girl" comedy series.

Charles Puffy and the cannibals.

At Thanksgiving, a tramp arrives in a homeless-hostile town.

Don’t expect much in the way of a plot from Kick Me Again. When a married student falls for her portly dance instructor, Puffy is forced to flee in a ballet tutu from the clutches of her jealous husband. The usual slapstick complications ensue before the cross-dressing funnyman finally locates a new suit of clothes. The viewing pleasure comes not from the run-of-the-mill gags and storyline but from seeing a master wring every ounce of comedy from his ungainly outfit. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with Universal Pictures, in 2013.

The misadventures of two intrepid explorers in the Egyptian desert.

After being discharged from the 372nd infantry, on account of a bean shortage, smithy seeks employment. He finds a job on a construction site, where he helps to build a house, and soon causes havoc amongst the other workers. The construction company owner leaves for a week, and tells his secretary to send a letter to Mr. Smith telling him to complete the construction of the house while he (the owner) is away. The letter is accidently sent to Smithy who manages to complete the house. When the owner returns the house is complete, and Smithy is commended until the last support beam is removed...

Stan does his best to recover a post-card, which he has forgotten to stamp. He attempts the recovery after hearing a remark by a postal inspector that the absence of the stamp makes the card a criminal offense for the sender. In the course of his struggles he swims through "oceans" of mail, rides up and down chutes, gets tied up in a mail bag and finally finds himself locked in a delivery truck with two thieves.

"Hunky" Dorrey and "Dinky Dubbs are on the run from the cops. They consider getting a job. After one gets his face blackened from a car's exhaust, they see an ad for a "colored Pullman porter". Mistaken identity due to accidental blackface drives the remainder of the plot. The two wind up on a train, where they run into the police again.

A pretty but virtuous small-town bank clerk is the victim of a vicious rumor from an unsuccessful suitor that she spent the night with a notorious womanizer.

A starving, uncompromising artist and an heiress fall in love on first sight and immediately get married. She loves his outrageous behaviour, his strange room-mate and the best apartment poverty can buy.

A nurse's younger brother is caught in a shootout between a criminal gang and the police, and he is shot and killed. The officer who is accused of shooting the man knows that he didn't do it, and sets out to find the real killer and clear his own name.

A newspaper editor turns a kidnapping into the banner headlines and exclusive story that could save his publication.

Gambler Nathan Detroit has few options for the location of his big craps game. Needing $1,000 to pay a garage owner to host the game, Nathan bets Sky Masterson that Sky cannot get virtuous Sarah Brown out on a date. Despite some resistance, Sky negotiates a date with her in exchange for bringing people into her mission. Meanwhile, Nathan's longtime fiancée, Adelaide, wants him to go legit and marry her.

When Prohibition ends, a barber tries to get in the liquor business only to come up against mobsters.

The film stars actor Rod La Rocque as Jerry Cleggert, a good-natured descendant of an infamous clan of pirates who resides aboard the rickety ship Jasper B. Cleggert is informed that in order to inherit a large inheritance, he must marry by his twenty-fifth birthday-- otherwise he would relinquish all claims to his impending fortune. Jerry soon meets his ideal would-be bride Agatha Fairhaven and the two immediately fall in love. Complications arise when Jerry's cousin, the dastardly lawyer Reginald Maltravers claims Agatha as his own. The courting couple suffer a series of mishaps on the way to altar; they are waylaid en route by a trio of bandits, escape from a runaway taxi cab, and outrun a mob of unscrupulous state authorities.

Fields plays "Larsen E. Whipsnade", the owner of a shady carnival that is constantly on the run from the law. Whipsnade is struggling to keep a step ahead of foreclosure, and clearly not paying his performers, including Bergen and McCarthy, who try to coax money out of him, or in McCarthy's case, steal some outright.

Jimmie Adams leads the cast, along with Lorraine MacLean and Billy Engle, in this Al Christie production.

Jimmie, Lavoris and Turpentine, three Knights of the Road (Bums/tramps), have just arrived in the West where Two-Gun Joe, the local bad man, surprises them while they eat. The sheriff runs him off but, in his haste to escape, Two-Gun drops a monogrammed pipe. Jimmie picks it up. Molly, on a nearby ranch, is having troubles with her foreman who, when he sees the pipe, thinks Jimmie is the outlaw and gets real peaceful. Impressed, Molly offer Jimmie the ranch-foreman's job. But they haven't seen the last of Two-Gun Joe.

A husband wants to slip out of the house to go to a poker game, but his wife catches him, and he is forced to stay at home and mind her sister's baby. Neal goes to the poker game and takes the baby with him, but absentmindedly leaves him there when he goes home.

Ollie falls in love with a woman. When he discovers she's already married, he unsuccessfully attempts suicide but he and Stan then decide to join the Foreign Legion to get away from their troubles. When they’re arrested for soon trying to desert the Legion—they escape a firing squad by stealing an aircraft.

A mobster's moll leads a newsman, cub reporter and photographer to a scoop.

Al attempts to sneak inside the studio to keep a date with an actress. He finally exchanges places with a dummy and lands within the walls of the studio, finds the girl and is promptly thrown out when he spoils several scenes and nearly causes a riot.

Jimmie Adams comedy produced by Al Christie.

A shy cowboy is interested in the local school teacher, but must compete with a bully for her attention.

A gorgeous showgirl is hired as a lingerie model at a fashion show......

A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.

During the Klondike Gold Rush, a misanthropic cattle driver and his talkative elderly partner run afoul of the law in Alaska and are forced to work for a saloon owner to take her supplies into a newly booming but lawless Candian town.

A man believes that the baby in his livingroom is the "surprise" his wife messaged him about, and must contend with the real father's attempts to get his daughter back.

Joe accidentally takes a picture of a paper plate which Moe and Larry submit to a magazine as an authentic picture of a flying saucer. Moe and Larry collect a big prize, but when the picture is proven to be phony, they're hauled off to Jail. Joe then gets a picture of a real spaceship and this time he gets the fame and fortune, while Moe and Larry wind up in a sanitarium.

Harry is a hobo, one step ahead of the law. After accidentally foiling a purse snatcher, he cadges a ride on a flatbed truck, is knocked out when a wax figure falls on him during the ride, and is carried into a museum by someone thinking he's another manikin. Inside, it takes him a while to figure out that he's among dummies. Then, two enterprising jewel thieves arrive to steal the museum director's priceless ruby. Cops are on hand as well: when the ruby goes missing, Harry may be the perfect fall guy. Can Harry stay away from the cops, foil the theft, and behave heroically in front of the museum director's daughter, the same woman whose purse he saved that morning?

Harry is made the temporary stationmaster in a small town.

A Hal Roach comedy starring 'Snub' Pollard and James Finlayson.

The Blondes and Redheads series: To prove his sophistication, a brutish gangster enlists the girls' help in winning a dancing competition

Film directed and starring Harry McCoy

Young lawyer Tod Jackson arrives in pioneer Kansas to visit his prosperous rancher friends the Daltons, just as the latter are in danger of losing their land to a crooked development company. When Tod tries to help them, a faked murder charge turns the Daltons into outlaws, but more victims than villains in this fictionalized version. Will Tod stay loyal to his friends despite falling in love with Bob Dalton's former fiancée Julie?

Embezzler, shill, all around confidence man S. Quentin Quale is heading west to find his fortune; he meets the crafty but simple brothers Joseph and Rusty Panello in a train station, where they steal all his money. They're heading west, too, because they've heard you can just pick the gold off the ground. Once there, they befriend an old miner named Dan Wilson whose property, Dead Man's Gulch, has no gold. They loan him their last ten dollars so he can go start life anew, and for collateral, he gives them the deed to the Gulch. Unbeknownst to Wilson, the son of his longtime rival, Terry Turner (who's also in love with his daughter, Eva), has contacted the railroad to arrange for them to build through the land, making the old man rich and hopefully resolving the feud. But the evil Red Baxter, owner of a saloon, tricks the boys out of the deed, and it's up to them - as well as Quale, who naturally finds his way out west anyway - to save the day.

The story of a family of Quakers in Indiana in 1862. Their religious sect is strongly opposed to violence and war. It's not easy for them to meet the rules of their religion in everyday life but when Southern troops pass the area they are in real trouble. Should they fight, despite their peaceful attitude?

More a romantic melodrama than a true Western, this Buck Jones vehicle from Columbia starred Jones as Buck Randall, a carefree cowboy whose popularity with the local saloon girls becomes the talk of the town.

Eddie Kerns sells his song to a Broadway producer and also lands a job dancing in the musical. He sends for his dance partner-fiancée Molly Mahoney who brings her younger sister Pat. Upon seeing Molly and Pat dance, the producer picks Pat for the show and gives Molly a job selling cigarettes. A wealthy friend of the producer named "Chat" Chatsworth also has his eye on Pat. Pat is teamed with Eddie in the specialty number as Kerns and Mahoney. Pat and Eddie soon realize that they are in love and must tell Molly. Pat balks at hurting Molly and goes out with Chat who already has five ex-wives. Remake of The Broadway Melody (1929).

In her attempts to make a splash on Broadway, a lively would-be-actress lands herself in hot water with the mob.

Paul Kriza is a cashier of a bank in a small town, and the happy husband of Anna and the father of four children. He is sent to New York to deliver some securities for the bank. There, he is tagged as easy-pickings by a con-game gang and Mary Brown, gang accomplice, proves he is. Waking up in the morning he discovers he has been robbed of the securities and, when he confronts the gang, he is hit on the head and taken out to be left on a railroad track. He comes to, struggles with the henchman and the man is killed when a train comes roaring by. Paul escapes but his watch is found and he is reported as the dead man. But he can't go home again.

A small-town newspaper publisher finds himself in opposition to the local banker on the return to town of a lad jailed possibly wrongly for a theft from the bank.

Henry is lured by old pal Hale into a night on the town despite fears that his wife will discover their hijinks.

Rancher Blaze Barker returns to Dead Falls after being framed by land-grabbers and spending two years in jail. Paroled, he can't wear a gun, but is aided by Marshal Fargo Steele. The gang is out to gain control of all of the valley land before a dam is constructed. When Blaze raises the money to pay off the taxes on his ranch, he finds it has been marked to incriminate him.

Chester Beatty and Tessie Weeks have been engaged for 5 years and going together for 15 years before that. Chester is reluctant to burden Tessie with marriage because of his secret problem. He is a sleepwalker. When Tessie finally does rope Chester into marriage, he can't get time off from his boss of 26 years, Mr. Frisbee. To resolve the problem, Chester sets out to impress his boss by securing a big sales contract of glass eyes. He takes Tessie and follows the rich doll company owner Horace B. Stanton to a lakeside resort and befriends him. However, his sleep-walking makes him a prime suspect in a thievery/murder case.

Dumped by his girlfriend, Buster drives west and winds up in a ghost town called Vulture City, where he appoints himself sheriff.

A cabbie and petty thief dreams of the big heist that will end his thieving ways.

Promises of happier times dawn for the financially distressed Patterson family when father Sweeney and brother-in-law Archibald "Doc" Finney win a $150,000 grand prize in the sweepstake contest. With their windfall, each member of the family decides to pursue a dream.

An add campaign for stockings embarrasses the girls.

A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money.

Wide Open Spaces is a 1924 Western silent film starring Stan Laurel.

Hal Roach produced comedy has Will Rogers playing the title character, a rather slow, dimwitted man who works on a ranch where he usually gets pushed around at. A woman (Marie Mosquini) comes to town looking for someone to help her photograph some of the animals so she picks Hank and soon regrets it.

'Snub' Pollard as a eccentric movie director.

A young cowboy takes a job at a ranch owned by two aging spinsters, unaware that both are completely in love with him.

Eddie Barry bewilders himself backstage at a show.

At a magic show put on by Blondini the magician, a member of the audience is invited up to participate. He gets into all sorts of shenanigans, tripping over the stage curtain, sending ducks up through the wrong trapdoors. He can hardly believe his eyes when a girl is sawn in half!

Al Goddard, a detective who works for the United States Postal Inspection Service, is assigned to arrest two criminals who've allegedly murdered a U.S. postal detective.

Roscoe the Rainmaker is invited to California (with sidekick "Billy") to relieve a terrible dry spell and to save the community from an unscrupulous businessman who stands to profit from the drought

A reporter covering a murder trial guesses that the murderer of a ruthless businessman is her ex-fiancé and persuades him to confess and clear the innocent man on trial.

Complications ensue after a radio producer insults a sponsor.

While on a ship to Skagway, Alaska, Duke and Chester find a map to a secret gold mine, which had been 'stolen' by thugs. In Alaska to recover her father's map, Sal Van Hoyden falls in with Ace Larson, who secretly wants to steal the gold mine for himself. Duke, Chester, the thugs, Ace and his henchman chase each other all over the countryside—for the map.

aka Billy, the Ford Buster

A schoolteacher helps his friend Dora by getting his students to help him to make a radio commercial.

A former actor poses as the son of a wealthy man and gets involved in a murder in which the real son is the suspect.

John and Mary Sims are city-dwellers hit hard by the financial fist of The Depression. Driven by bravery (and sheer desperation) they flee to the country and, with the help of other workers, set up a farming community - a socialist mini-society. The newborn community suffers many hardships - drought, vicious raccoons and the long arm of the law - but ultimately pull together to reach a bread-based Utopia.

The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.

Whoever can make the sale of an order for noodles exactly five feet long to the customer in the black beard and white carnation gets to marry the boss' beautiful daughter, Madge Kirby

During the Alaska gold rush, a miner hits the motherlode, but a corrupt sheriff jumps his claim, leading to a tremendous fight.

Stan Laurel as a harness racing jockey who must win a big race.

A man starts working in a department store and has to deal with a female kleptomaniac.

To win his girl Gertie back, Freddie decides to climb a high mountain and challenge a world champion.

A mild mannered sheriff must fight both a hired gun and local anti-Indian bigotry in a small frontier town.

Rich old Cyrus West's relatives are waiting for him to die so they can inherit. But he stipulates that his will be read 20 years after his death. On the appointed day his expectant heirs arrive at his brooding mansion. The will is read and it turns out that Annabelle West, the only heir with his name left, inherits, if she is deemed sane. If she isn't, the money and some diamonds go to someone else, whose name is in a sealed envelope. Before he can reveal the identity of her successor to Annabelle, Mr. Crosby, the lawyer, disappears. The first in a series of mysterious events, some of which point to Annabelle in fact being unstable.

Late in the Civil War, three Confederate soldiers escape from a Union prison camp in Missouri. They soon fall into the hands of pro-Confederate raiders, who force them to act as "outriders" (escorts) for a civilian wagon train that will be secretly transporting Union gold from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to St. Louis, Missouri. The three men are to lead the wagons into a raider trap in Missouri, but one of them starts to have misgivings....

When a bottle of hair tonic renders him bald, Jimmie is mistaken for a famous French beautician and is called upon to demonstrate his skills.

A Native American Civil War hero returns home to fight for his people.

Snooty opera singer meets a rough-and-tumble fisherman in the Louisiana bayous, but this fisherman can sing! Her agent lures him away to New Orleans to teach him to sing opera but comes to regret this rash decision when the singers fall in love.