Movie Review #26 The Kid (1921)

- A light-hearted laugh with a serious undertone

When I started this blog back in February, I really wanted somewhere to throw down my thoughts about particular movies in a venue that didn't have a character limit, and with an added bonus could get a reader base that was not just limited to my circle of friends. To that point I have been successful, however another goal, not as apparent, was that I wanted an excuse to watch older movies, as I had seen very few movies made prior to my creation on this earth. Last year I started watching the “greats” and since then I have been watching many of the IMDb's Top 250, and so all this month I'll be reviewing old black and white films that just happen to be on that list and you can compare my rating to theirs. I figured I'd start with a real oldie on this special month, a movie from 1921 to be exact. Yes, Charles Chaplin's first full feature and a 91 year old film. So, not to state the obvious, but it's a silent film by a great slapstick comedian.

To be honest, slapstick was comedy gold for me as a child growing up. I never watched a lot of live action but I loved the cartoons with comically large mallets and people slipping on oil slicks and the like. However, as I grew older that type of comedy was really lost on me, so I find a lot of Chaplin's films to drag on for too long which rather hurts the film exceptionally since most of his films are not more than an hour anyway. This is exactly why I picked The Kid. Out of all of Chaplin's most notable films, this has a much stronger emotional storyline in it. Think of it as the mix between comedy and tragedy rather than straight-up slapstick.

The film begins with a lady who has decided that it is in the best interest of her baby that she gives it up. She decided to leave it in a rather expensive automobile and leaves tearfully distraught. The automobile then gets stolen by some wicked thieves who dump the child in an alleyway and leave. Enter The Tramp/hobo, played by Charles Chaplin. Some slapstick-like humour ensues and a five year time- lapse happens. We see a pretty heartfelt bond between father and son develop even if the lifestyle isn't what one would call normal or acceptable. It's sweet but short lived. I found the movie far closer to a soft tale about love for someone who isn't your genetic relative than a real attempt at slapstick, even with the incredibly over-sized man who brawls with the Tramp early in the movie.

There is a dream sequence in the movie, and I'm not sure if I'm reading too much into it. It occurs shortly after his illegally-adopted child gets taken back to the rightful mother and he falls asleep in the doorway to his now vacated home. While he slumbers he sees a majority of the cast's characters outside his home but everyone has angel wings and he is reunited with the kid. I thought this was a touching scene with the blatant message that even when you lose someone once you die you are together forever with them. You know as if to say it was OK that the hobo lost the boy because eventually they'll be reunited. Which would have been a rather nice, albeit religious, scene to end the movie. But the movie continues and shows the real ending in the non-dream world where the tramp is reunited with the woman and her child, and the credits roll. I thought the real ending dampened the prelude to the ending sequence quite a bit and was just non-essential.

Well at least it knows.

With a silent film, actions truly need to speak louder than words, and while there are cards given through the movie, they aren't really necessary; the story is told in such a way that it can be followed quite simply. I never really felt for any of them but I understood the emotions they were portraying at least.

I felt the movie would be stronger with a bit more bonding between father and son and perhaps less slapstick. The fight scene with the strongman was wasted as it fails to create or solve any sort of situation. It seems far more of a time filler than anything else. At least in The Kid, Charles Chaplin didn't decide to stick some bizarre reason why his character should again fall in love and live happily ever after with a much younger woman.

I gave it 6/10
IMDb user rating: 8.3/10 (26,034 Votes)

PS: It's harsh, but yeah The Tramp doesn't have any legal rights to the kid, right?