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The Kid

Release date 21st January 1921
Country : USA
Running time : 68 mins
Genre : Comedy
Starring Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan
Screenplay by Charles Chaplin
Directed by Charles Chaplin

Charlie the Tramp finds an abandoned baby and makes a home for him. Five years later a doctor discovers a note left by the mother and reports it to the authorities who come to take the child away. Eventually a kind policemen reunites Charlie with the kid at the mother's house.

"A picture with a smile and perhaps a tear" says the opening title well there is no perhaps about it but the delightful performances of Chaplin and Coogan breathe life and hope into the film's squalid environment. The first comedy to successfully combine laughter and tears, it only really dips with the heaven dream sequence which isn't necessary.
 

The production took place in the midst of the disintegration of Chaplin's first marriage to Mildred Harris and her lawyers tried to seize the film.

Chaplin re-edited the film to a version around 50 mins in 1971 adding his own score.
 

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DVD Talk (Chaplin Collection Vol 2)
BBC Online (Region 2 edition)

Written content copyright Derek McLellan,2005.
Copyright © The Fedora Chronicles

The Kid image from
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