This site is dedicated to the preservation of memory of silent films. Although they were quite important in the evolution of cinema, they remain virtually forgotten nowadays. Since the best way to understand the present is taking an attentive look at the past, here you have some movies, pictures, interviews, etc. on silent cinema. Some occasional material on sound films will also be presented. I hope you enjoy getting to know a bit more about the beauty and sheer fun of these golden oldies.
Friday, August 12, 2011
The Kid- 1921
Country: USA
Release Date: 6 February 1921 (USA)
Director: Charles Chaplin
Writer: Charles Chaplin
Stars: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance and Jackie Coogan
The opening title reads: "A comedy with a smile--and perhaps a tear". As she leaves the charity hospital and passes a church wedding, Edna deposits her new baby with a pleading note in a limousine and goes off to commit suicide. The limo is stolen by thieves who dump the baby by a garbage can. Charlie the Tramp finds the baby and makes a home for him. Five years later Edna has become an opera star but does charity work for slum youngsters in hope of finding her boy. A doctor called by Edna discovers the note with the truth about the Kid and reports it to the authorities who come to take him away from Charlie. Before he arrives at the Orphan Asylum Charlie steals him back and takes him to a flophouse. The proprietor reads of a reward for the Kid and takes him to Edna. Charlie is later awakened by a kind policeman who reunites him with the Kid at Edna's mansion.
The production company tried to cheat Charles Chaplin by paying him for this six-reel film what they would ordinarily pay him for two-reel film, about half a million dollars. Chaplin took the unassembled film out of state until they agreed to the one-and-a-half million he deserved, plus half the surplus profits on rentals, plus reversion of the film to him after five years on the rental market.
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For the scene in which the Kid is taken from the Tramp and nearly carted away to a workhouse, Charles Chaplin stated in his autobiography that the young Jackie Coogan was made to cry by his father, who told him that if he would not cry in the scene, he would be sent to an actual workhouse.
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The shooting ratio (the amount of material shot:what appears in the final film) is 53:1, far higher than any other Charles Chaplin film.
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The main theme from Charles Chaplin's score is based on a theme from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony.
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Charles Chaplin suffered through a divorce from his first wife Mildred Harris while shooting this film.
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