Screening

About The Kid

Year Released:

1921

Genres:

Comedy, Drama, Children’s

Metadata:

Directed by Charles Chaplin

The Kid (1921) screens immediately following Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Charlie Chaplin’s first full-length feature, The Kid, remains of cinema’s greatest examples of the ways in which comedy and drama can combine to move an audience while entertaining them. Chaplin’s Tramp comes upon an abandoned child and decides to raise him as his own. The Kid, played memorably by Jackie Coogan in a role that made him the first child star, soon becomes the Tramp’s partner in crime.  When the mother who abandoned the Kid returns to find him later, she sets in motion the wheels of  welfare and justice agencies who continually attempt to separate the Kid from the Tramp. A movie at once heartbreaking and hilarious, The Kid resonates as a fable about the ways we find family in order to survive.

Introduction is being provided by Landon Palmer, PhD Candidate in the Department of Communication and Culture.

(16mm, Live piano accompaniment by Dave Drazin)