Unusual for a Harold Lloyd movie in his July 1919's "Billy Blazes, Esq." The comedian doesn't make his appearance until five minutes into the film. Prior to his marvelous introduction where he adroitly hand wraps a cigarette in one palm in the windy plains, "Billy Blazes, Esq" first introduces the town's cast of characters, establishing the villains as well as the proverbial beauty in distress, Bebe Daniels.
Lloyd's initial roles in cinema when he first arrived in Hollywood was playing extras in Tom Mix westerns. His movements in "Billy Blazes Esq," both on the horse and handling his sidearms, are fluid and natural because of his experiences on the western sets. In Lloyd films, no one ever gets seriously injured or killed. Here, despite thousands of bullets flying and some hitting the keisters of the bad guys, the potentially fatal objects appear to cause a sting rather than a bleeding wound. That was the secret to Lloyd's oeuvre: physicality and danger are to be laughed at, and the greater the potential for injuries, the louder the laughs. And "Billy Blazes Esq." delivers that and more.