Slideshow
THE KID
U.S., 1921
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin
Starring Charles Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, Edna Purviance
Approx. 53 min. 35mm.
Charlie meets his match in the person of 6-year-old Jackie Coogan, a streetwise ragamuffin raised since infancy by the Little Tramp. The first true Chaplin feature, an instant classic, interweaves sublime slapstick with some of the greatest tear-jerking moments in cinema history.
Reviews
“Nowhere is the genuinely poignant sense of human needs and ideals that Chaplin creates through the collision of sentiment with the physical and everyday more poetically achieved.”
– Tom Gunning, The Criterion Collection
“To tell the plot of this film is to do it a great disservice; this is not a film about story but about character and charm. There are winning moments, hilarious gags, a famous dream sequence, and scenes that tug at your heartstrings. It would be difficult to find a better film to introduce children to the talents of Charlie Chaplin.”
– Leonard Maltin, Leonard Maltin’s Family Film Guide
“One would be hard-pressed to find a more perfect fantasy sequence in all of film than the Tramp’s dream of an ersatz heaven in THE KID, with wobbly angel wings that fleck feathers like dandruff and angel dogs who look around in confusion as they are flown away on hidden wires.”
– Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club