The Kid – 1921
Charlie Chaplin
Silent Movie / Comedy – 1921
3/5 stars
This one starts with an ingĂ©nue who has a baby but the father isn’t interested (doesn’t believe it’s his? Who knows with silent movies) so she is desperate to keep her career so she does the unthinkable and abandons the baby in a rich person’s car hoping he can have a better life (leaving a note asking for someone to care for this orphan child).However – the car is promptly stolen by two thugs who race off in the car only to pull over when the baby starts crying – one thug waves the gun at the baby and suggests (via body language) maybe we should you know.. Shoot it? The other thug who isn’t a complete sociopath decides to leave the baby in an alley (arguably an equally poor solution) where Chaplin’s tramp happens to live.
Chaplin stumbles across the baby and tries to leave it but his conscious won’t let him neither will the police officer who patrols the slums. He tries to put the baby in passing mother’s carriage but that backfires as she catches him in the act and Chaplin goes back into his hovel unsure what to do.
5 years pass and they’ve fallen into a poverty riddled routine where the kids breaks a window with a rock and Chaplin walks around as a window repairman and they scrape together enough to maybe buy some food (although seeing a coin operated gas meter was illuminating) – all during this time the mother becomes a famous wealthy actress who tries to atone for her guilt by running a charity for children where she unwittingly interacts with her own child – and she gives him a small toy to cheer him up.
The trouble began when a local bully stole the toy and the kid wasn’t taking that shit and threw down like a champion. They got into a proper brawl and the whole hood showed up for the show (not much else going on tbh) – the kid is whopping the bully’s ass but then the bully’s gigantic dad shows up and tells Chaplin if he kid loses he’s going to curb stomp him so Chaplin tries to throw the fight and pronounce the bully the winner but the kid has the heart of a lion and drops the bully with a tyson-esque combo (in reality he looked like Yoda fighting during the clone was) then Gigantor comes for Chaplin but he manages to avoid his punches for a while until he grabs a brick and starts going full mason on the bully’s dad’s forehead.. Eventually goliath falls and they escape back to their hovel.
Shortly afterward the kid gets sick and his mother (still unknowingly) arranges for a doctor to visit – where Chaplin explains that the kid isn’t his and shows the doctor the note. The doctor arranges for an orphanage to kidnap the kid forcefully which honestly is a traumatic scene to watch as a father which sets off a wacky rooftop chase scene where Chaplin rescues the kid and they hide out in a flophouse to figure out what to do. However, during this the mom met with the Dr. who showed her the note Chaplin had and she realizes that the kid is hers! What are the odds! She puts out a 1,000 dollar reward for his return
The owner of the flophouse sees the reward in the paper and grabs the kid to turn him in for the money and when Chaplin wakes up the kid is gone (again, nightmare fuel for dads) and he frantically searches for him before giving up and falling asleep at the door of his hovel which kicks off an LSD fueled fever dream where the people in his neighborhood are devils and angels and he’s flying around doing.. uhh.. I’m not sure. He’s awaken by the police and he thinks he’s going to jail but he’s actually brought to the mansion of the mother who then lets him in (presumably to reunite with the kid)
Fun fact: The actor who played the kid was uncle Fester in the Addams Family TV series!
Not Fun fact: This movie was written shortly after lost a son in childbirth – making is especially poignant.
Really not fun fact: The kid was conceived on a very young actress and Chaplin married her to avoid the scandal and was divorced shortly after – then he did it AGAIN with the girl who played the angel in THIS movie knocking her up at 16. Yikes.