About The Kid (1921)
The story behind the film
The Kid was Charlie Chaplin's first feature-length film as a director, and it was a gamble: a full-length story that mixed slapstick with genuine sadness. An unmarried mother, unable to care for her baby, leaves him in a wealthy car with a note asking whoever finds him to love and care for him. Through a chain of mishaps the baby ends up with the Little Tramp, who reluctantly takes him home to his attic room. Five years later the two are a devoted team — the boy breaks windows, and the Tramp happens to come by selling glass to fix them — until the authorities arrive to take the child away.
Chaplin made the film during a difficult period in his own life, and its tenderness seems personal. It was a huge success: Wikipedia reports it was the second-highest-grossing film of 1921.
Cast & crew
- Written, produced and directed by Charlie Chaplin
- Charlie Chaplin as the Tramp
- Jackie Coogan as the Kid
- Edna Purviance as the Woman, the Kid's mother
- Carl Miller as the Man, the artist who fathered the child
- Tom Wilson as the Policeman
Why it's worth watching
Jackie Coogan was a small child when he made The Kid, and he gives one of the great child performances in film history: funny, quick and completely natural. His scenes with Chaplin — sharing pancakes in the attic, running their window-repair scheme, and especially the scene where officials try to take him away — are among the most famous in silent cinema. The rooftop chase that follows is Chaplin at his most emotional.
The film also contains a strange, dreamlike sequence in which the Tramp dreams of a heaven where his slum neighbourhood has become "Fairyland", complete with angel wings — Chaplin experimenting with fantasy inside a realistic comedy.
At under an hour, The Kid is also an ideal introduction to Chaplin for children and newcomers to silent film.
Fun facts
- Coogan became one of the first big child stars in Hollywood. Much later he played Uncle Fester on TV's The Addams Family.
- Disputes over Coogan's childhood earnings later led California to pass protections for child performers' income, often called the "Coogan Law".
- Chaplin reissued The Kid in 1971 with a new score he composed himself, and trimmed a few scenes.
- The film was added to the National Film Registry in 2011.
Public-domain status
The Kid was first published in 1921, so the film is in the public domain in the United States. Chaplin's 1971 reissue score is a later work with its own copyright; we do not play it. See "Rights & source" below for details of the copy and music we broadcast.