Charlie Chaplin’s The
Kid is unique among his films in that it’s the only time we see the Tramp
as a family man. Normally he’s on his own and breezing through life.
Occasionally there’s a girl and sometimes he even wins her in the end. But to
see the Tramp with a child to care for reveals a side of the character unseen
either before or after.
To be sure, the Tramp comes to fatherhood like most
things in his life – unwillingly and unwittingly. At the start of the film a
young woman leaves a charity hospital with baby in arms. Destitute and without
means to care for the infant she leaves it in the car of a wealthy man.
Regretful a short time later she returns, but the car has been stolen by two
thieves who leave the baby in an alley. This series of coincidences leads to
the Tramp finding the baby. He picks it up believing it belongs to a passerby.
Yet one more coincidence – a passing beat cop – precludes the possibility he
can put the child back in the alley. And so a father is born.
We jump ahead five years and the boy (Jackie Coogan) and
the Tramp have a cozy arrangement whereby the boy goes around breaking windows
and then the Tramp comes by to fix them for pay. He’s taught the child how to
survive on the street and without even realizing it, become his father. I don’t
think the Tramp understands the bond he has with the child until a doctor calls
the state orphanage to come take the boy away.
This sets up one of the most exciting chases and some of
the biggest emotional moments of Chaplin’s career. The sight of the Tramp
looking despondent as he is held back while the boy is taken and the shots of
the child pleading with his captors to bring him back to his father is enough
to melt the heart of the most cynical viewer. Then, impossibly, the Tramp
breaks free and executes a rooftop dash to catch the truck, beat the guards
away and embrace the boy before running away.
After an innkeeper turns them in for the reward money,
the Tramp is once again stripped of the boy. This leads into one of the more
bizarre and extraneous sequences in a Chaplin film when the Tramp falls asleep
on the doorstep of his home and dreams a fantastic scene of himself and the boy
as angels flying around the alley where they live. It’s a scene complete with
devilish characters interceding in their cherubic flight. This dream sequence
has little emotional resonance and doesn’t really add much other than time
filler before a policeman awakens him to bring him to the home of the boy’s
mother (Edna Purviance), now a wealthy opera singer.
The Kid may
have worked better as an extended short of about 40 minutes or so. In fact, at
the time Chaplin was contracted with First National to deliver short films, but
also given full creative control and in a few cases (The Kid being one) expanded the short to feature-length. Perhaps
Chaplin bit off a little more of the pie than he should have. The buildup of
the relationship between the Tramp and the child is necessary to achieve the
emotional climax when the state agents take him away, but you get the sense
that if some fat had been trimmed, Chaplin could have crafted a tighter and
more satisfying film overall.
Great review!
ReplyDeleteWe're linking to your article for Charlie Chaplin Friday at SeminalCinemaOutfit.com
Keep up the good work!
great! where's the link?
Delete