The Kid (1921)

A little Chaplin for you...

Charlie Chaplin I think is known for his stunt work and the sight gags that he created with his adorable Little Tramp character. I think that it might be impossible to dislike a character you wears size 16 shoes, a bowler hat, a Hitlerstache, and sports ridiculously bad teeth. Add that to his amazing physical prowess and perfect timing, and you achieve comedic gold. But many overlook what a poignant and sentimental writer he could be, and I think movies like City Lights and The Kid are some of his best work because after the laughter dies down one truly finds that they hope for the best for The Tramp and his friends, and to get a raw human reaction from the audience is a triumph that not many directors can boast.

This film, along with most of his other well known pieces, was made late in his career, and like fine wine he got better with age. This delightful little story observes The Tramp as he happens upon a baby that was born to a poor mother and left in an alley, tears in her eyes. After fruitlessly trying to discard of the baby by various means The Tramp finds himself drawn to the innocent baby, and decides to raise him as his son. Fast forward five years...

In a little ramshackle apartment The Tramp has raised The Kid (played by vaudevillian six year old, Jackie Coogan) in his image, fashioning a proper con artist out him. The connection between the two is so sweet and feels so real that I felt as though The Tramp really had reared a child, because that is exactly what I pictured what would have happened had he experienced fatherhood. His character makes mistakes of course, but the love was real and, even though he wasn't The Kid's biological father, he was his dad. For a lot of the film we watch them in their day to day lives making money replacing windows, dodging cops, fighting off bullies (both large and small), and generally just doing father-son stuff. Through most of it we don't laugh, but we smile. Most of the gags are not particularly funny, but they are amusing and the relationship between the two characters is so inherently silly that one can't help but grin at their antics.

A shadow falls on their happy life, though, when a doctor discovers that The Kid is not really the fruit of The Tramp's loins, and he calls on the evil Orphan Asylum to take away the child. To make matters worse, the mother of the boy, now a big name actress, learns the whereabouts of her son and decides to get him back. The trials are great, but is love stronger? I will leave you to find out for yourself!

There was a movie that came out about twenty years ago called Chaplin, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the title role. It is not the best movie, but he gives a terrific performance as the British film star, and showed the process with which Charles Chaplin became The Tramp. Everything that he did seemed so effortless and so off the cuff that it was really quite astonishing. As I watched The Kid there was a moment early on when The Tramp sticks the baby in a random carriage with another child. The mother protests, and the bewildered Tramp picks up the wrong baby by accident but quickly corrects his mistake. It is a hilarious moment and made me think of Chaplin; I wondered if he had improvised that bit or if it had been staged like the rest of the scene. I really truly hope for the former, because the Downey Jr. film set my expectations very high for Chaplin, and my romantic ideas of his films is that he fulfilled those hopes. Every generation has its genius, and more so than Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd the silent film era's was Charles Chaplin. Bravo.

3.5/4