The Kid (Charles Chaplin)

[pro-bassoonist]

Park Circus’ newly announced label launches in Q2 of 2010 with a collection of some of Europe’s most influential auteurs and a welcome return from Charlie Chaplin who makes his long overdue debut in Hi-Definition.

Coming in May: The Kid (1921).

John Nesbit:

Oft cited as being overly sentimental, Charlie Chaplin prefaces The Kid with an inter-title proclaiming that it is "a story with a smile--perhaps, a tear." The film certainly pulls on the heart strings, most notably when social workers threaten to tear the kid away from the Tramp in a scene that comes from Chaplin's own experience at seven when his mother was committed to a mental institution. Charlie and his brother Sydney were assigned to an orphanage, and Chaplin clearly was emotionally scarred by the experience--read his autobiography or watch Richard Attenborough's Chaplin for details. So, in a very real sense, The Kid stands as a landmark for Chaplin. Not only is this his most personal film, but it marked a turning point in his career.

Chaplin's creativity had been languishing in a dry spell for several months in 1918 ever since his ill-fated marriage to 17-year old Mildred Harris. But fate intervened. Their son, Norman Spencer Chaplin, was born July 7, 1919 but lived only three days. Ten days after his son's death, Chaplin was back at work, auditioning babies for a project tentatively entitled "The Waif." Fortuitously, a visit to a Music Hall where a vaudevillian performer brought out his four-year old son, Jackie Coogan, to charm the audience with his song and dance numbers changed film history. Chaplin instantly knew that he had found his co-star, as Coogan was a natural mimic that became the "perfect" actor for the demanding perfectionist. Had he been able to do so, Chaplin would have played every part in his films--he consistently acted out ever role and every nuance for his actors--so Coogan truly provides an accurate picture of Chaplin at age five.

Originally slated as a two-reel short but expanded to its advertised "Six reels of joy" when Chaplin convinced the board of First National Pictures to go with his longer concept, the simple story begins with a desperate unwed mother abandoning her new born baby, who is raised by The Tramp. The baby is a real charmer, as his expressive face matches Chaplin's spirit even when drinking from his teapot apparatus. Between Chaplin's thwarted fatherly urges and his compulsive re-takes (over 53 hours of footage for this 68-minute feature), he gets the reactions that he's seeking. The most memorable images occur after an instant five year gap, where Coogan takes over.

Chaplin and Coogan form a real partnership as actors as well as in the screenplay, in a classic sequence where the Kid uses a whirlwind windup to break windows while the Tramp ambles by conveniently with a repair kit. A clever concept sure to elicit smiles, the scheme begins to go awry when a beat cop happens on the pair, resulting in the expected chase scene and subsequent complications when the pair chooses the policeman's house as a target. Chaplin and Coogan are so in synch here that it's believable that they really are father and son, and others on the set report that Chaplin really did treat the young actor like his son during the prolonged shoot. Like clones from two generations, Chaplin and Coogan successfully bring off virtually perfect comic scenes that come across naturally, but it's the "sentimental" scene that everyone remembers.

The pure anguish that both Coogan and Chaplin display during the separation scene feels so real that we could be watching a documentary paralleling the workhouse days of Dickens' London. Coogan's tears, outstretched arms, and silent wailing all communicate total devastation as do the cuts to Chaplin's underplayed looks of horror and desperation. Combined together, it's a sequence that lives on forever and continually is replayed in Chaplin highlights. Doubtlessly, this scene captures Chaplin's own feelings when he was separated from his mother, who he virtually worshipped as an "angel." Chaplin doesn't let that image go by either. A dream sequence includes a number of angels, including twelve-year old "temptress angel" Lita Grey, made-up to look like she was eighteen. Grey was destined to become Chaplin's second wife in 1924 and bear him two sons.

While Coogan and Chaplin form the central core of The Kid, two other women play prominent roles in its production. Having played a number of parts in Chaplin productions (The Immigrant, A Dog's Life), Edna Purviance effectively plays the woman whose "only sin was motherhood." She began drinking heavily during the shoot, causing Chaplin to consider replacing her, but she got through her role sufficiently and would later appear in some of his later productions. Although her part is relatively small and melodramatic, she remains memorable as the good hearted mother forced to give up her child that later redeems herself, providing the kind of ending that Chaplin himself would have wished for himself.

The other woman playing a significant role in the production would be considered a villain--and that is Chaplin's wife. Their marital problems had become fodder for the press, and Harris' lawyers threatened to seize to ensure that she received proper alimony, resulting in one of cinema's most bizarre episodes. To avoid litigation and protect his film, Chaplin and his crew secreted off to a hotel in Salt Lake City to complete the editing process, and the film finally opened in 1921 to appreciative audiences.

As Chaplin's first feature film, The Kid stands as a true breakthrough for the comic genius, as he was no longer confined to limit his creativity to twenty minute shorts. Chaplin subsequently broke loose from the system and formed his own production company with friends Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, and United Artists helped change Hollywood forever.

And what about the kid? The cute actor worked the star circuit in his own right for a decade, but bad management by his parents left him few resources, giving rise to a Federal law protecting the rights of child actors that bears Coogan's name. He also received notoriety in his latter years as the "not so cute" Uncle Fester in The Addams Family television series. But for a brief period in the twenties, Coogan stood alongside Chaplin as his only true co-star in any of his films.

True to his perfectionistic form, Chaplin wasn't really finished with The Kid in 1921, composing the definitive score for the film fifty years after its release. Additionally, Chaplin re-edited the film, cutting out three scenes that showed how the mother felt about marriage and motherhood. It's as if Chaplin was tinkering with his own childhood, striving to make it closer to his ideal. The real world may intrude with an occasional negligent father and insensitive authority figures, but for Charlie the people who matter all have pure hearts.

The Kid Blu-ray preorder

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