fan of Charlie Chaplin silent films forever, and if you haven’t figured it out yet, today is the
100 year anniversary of probably the greatest film ever made. So, I had to risk the views and some
of my animation loving subscribers, to make this once-in-a-lifetime review on a film that is my all
of the way, let’s jump into this review for the 100 year anniversary of The Kid!
Before we start with the movie itself, let’s talk about the cultural significance and the context
surrounding this one. The Kid was made in 1921, definitely well into Chaplin’s prolific career,
with a budget of just around 250 thousand dollars, and a box office of 5 million,
according to Wikipedia. However, I don’t know if this is adjusted for inflation, and every source
I look to seems to give a different answer, so as long as we know it was a box office success,
that’s the real takeaway here. The movie stars Chaplin himself, who also wrote it, directed it,
composed it, produced it, and edited it! Holy crap. It also stars Jackie Coogan as the kid,
and Edna Purviance as the mother. Yeah, this movie barely has any characters,
and since it only lasts under an hour, it lets us connect to the two main characters, especially
because both actors are incredibly talented. The movie plot is about the Tramp finding an orphan
boy on the streets and raising him as his own son. We see the kid grow up and help Tramp make
money until he gets sick and has to go to the police, until the mother reunites with the baby
and, I won’t spoil the ending because its just that good! And oh brother, the music is amazing!
We’ll get into that as I get into the review but the music here is absolutely fantastic,
and was remastered in 1971 for most modern versions of the film. In terms of its own context,
this was one of the most famous and culturally significant silent films of the 1920s, and offered
audiences with some escapism, which was taking off at this time! It now stays at that mark,
getting hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube from international viewers
and having a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Now that you know a little bit about The Kid,
let’s delve a little deeper into it and truly understand how incredible this movie is!
We start off the movie with the section called A Smile, And Perhaps A Tear. We see a mother
who just had a baby. We see that her husband has broken up with her, and accidentally throws her
picture in a fire, which signifies the end of their relationship. I love the show don’t tell
aspect of silent films, and how they can use these metaphors to tell their story better. The mother’s
appearance gives off the vibe that she’s very poor, especially without her husband’s support.
She leaves the baby in a car by a mansion, hoping the rich people who live there adopt the baby and
care for it better than her. Unfortunately, some thieves come along, and steal the car,
find the baby, and leave it beside a wall on the ground. While they was complete idiots,
their faces and makeup is absolutely hysterical! Aaaand we cut to the second scene, introducing
us to the Tramp on his morning promenade, as they call it. Honestly, just watching a man walk down
a street and interact with things is a great way to introduce us to his character. And by the way,
the music for this segment would be my favorite from the whole film, if it wasn’t for one other
scene we’ll get to later. And if you haven’t noticed yet, all the background music in this
video is the same background music you’d hear in the film. Anyway, we see him walking down the
road, being his classic physically funny self, as we see visually that he’s very poor, having
tattered clothes, dirty hands, ripped gloves, and old cigarettes. He sees the baby, and after trying
to get rid of it several times through some funny antics, he looks as the note his mother left, and
decides to keep him and be his father. He takes him to his home, as we see how old and broken down
his home is, and names the kid John. Meanwhile, the mother goes back to the mansion, and after
finding out the baby was taken, faints and we cut back to Tramp. We cut to the new segment of him
raising the baby, as he makes use of what he has to nurture the baby as much as he can, like making
a milk bottle out of a kettle, or a toilet out of a broken chair. At about 13 minutes in, the movie
really takes off as we cut to 5 years later when the kid is older. The music here is another of my
favorites, and is actually the most catchy because I’ve whistled it out of nowhere to myself at least
12 times this week. Now, if you’re a movie geek like me you’d know that in these black and white
movies the actors always need to put on eye liner to make their eyes pop out more, and sometimes
in this movie the kid has a tad too much eye liner on, and it’s really funny to see! Anyway,
we see the kid and the Tramp doing everyday things, putting a quarter in the gas meter, and
we then cut to them doing their job. Basically, the kid throws rocks and breaks people’s windows,
and Chaplin just waltzes down the street with his goofy glass backpack and fixes it for them,
to make money. It’s honestly an ingenious method, I’m surprised no one has figured this out yet. We
see a policeman come behind the Kid as he’s throwing a rock, and after the kid escapes
and comes close to Chaplin, the cop finds out what he’s doing and chases them home. We cut to another
window repairing, as Chaplin flirts with a woman he’s helping, until we find out that’s the same
policeman’s wife. Just look at these hilarious clips to see how talented Chaplin was, I don’t
even need to play the nonexistent dialogue for it to be funny! After they escape him again, they eat
some...HOLY JESUS what is that he’s eating? We cut to the mother, who’s character I’m not a huge fan
of because I’d rather be watching hilarious Tramp antics, but I’m glad they showed her to be a kind
and developing character so it’s more deep for when she comes back later. She is now a rich star,
contrasting to the poor and helpless mother she was in the beginning. And the next scene is super
heartbreaking because the mother actually comes to Chaplin’s front door by coincidence and talks to
the kid. Obviously they don’t know each other, but its a scene that everyone gets sad to watch by the
end because its left unresolved. She gives him some toys, and walks off, completely unaware of
what’s happened. The music here is super nice and relaxing, honestly this entire soundtrack might
just be the greatest soundtrack of completely original music to ever exist! Props to Chaplin
for being such an extraordinary talent! As the kid is playing with his toys, another bully kid comes
along and throws his toys away and tries to beat him up. And all these people just stands around
them and watch like its super entertaining. THESE KIDS ARE FIGHTING AND YOU GUYS ARE ENJOYING IT!
At first, the Tramp tries to stop the fight, but after his kid starts to win the fight,
he starts being funny and even telling the kid where to punch and kick to hurt the other kid.
Enter - his big brother, who’s probably the funniest thing in this movie ironically, because
he literally comes in the scene, and punches a random guy after 2 seconds. He tells Chaplin that
if his kid beats his brother, he’ll beat Chaplin. And he does, so we get this hilarious fight scene
that Chaplin actually wins somehow. I can’t really do it justice, so go and watch it after this
video! I’m kind of assuming everyone has seen the movie already. The kid gets sick after the fight,
so the doctor visits Chaplin’s home. There’s a lot of small physical humor that I can’t explain
it without losing the comedic value, so again I’m assuming you’ve all seen this before, or
are paying attention to the clips on screen. The doctor leaves and 3 days later, someone from...I
think an orphanage comes to take the kid away. Now this... *deep breath*...is, in my opinion,
the best scene in cinematic history. I know that’s a bold statement, but this scene of
the kid being forcefully taken from Chaplin and eventually being chased on the rooftops,
accompanied by the BEST music I have ever heard in my life, is spectacular! Seen it or not,
after this video or right now I don’t care, this video’s gonna do terribly anyway, go to Youtube
and search Charlie chaplin the kid rooftop chase scene and watch it all the way through. It is a
heartbreaking scene that is edited, written and acted so well. The music makes up about 80% of
that amazingness though. And yes, it does end with the most amazing eye liner on any actor in this
movie yet! Chaplin scares everyone off, the doctor sees the mother and coincidentally shows her the
note she left when she had the baby, and we see Chaplin and the kid go to a shelter to sleep for
the night. And my god, this guy who pickpockets Chaplin here has to be my favorite character of
all time! Seriously, that’s my new Twitter profile picture right there. The shelter owner figures out
who they are since they’re in the newspaper, and takes the kid to the police station quietly. And
when Chaplin wakes up we get this beautiful scene of him turning on all the lights, waking everyone
up and screaming for his son, not caring at all about anyone else. It really shows how much he
cares about him and he doesn’t care about anything else! The next morning, we see the mother reunite
with the kid, as we cut to...the weirdest scene in the movie: Dreamland. I personally don’t see
the reason why this is in the movie, maybe it symbolizes something, maybe they had a budget
and felt like making it, I don’t know, but after all this crying its a nice change of pace. Moving
right past this scene, we do a nice transition back to reality, as the policeman takes Chaplin to
the mother’s house, as he meets the mother, sees the kid again, and the movie comes to a close.
And that was the Kid! One of the best movies in cinematic history for sure, if not the very best,
and a classic among classics. The soundtrack is incredible, Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan
deliver fantastic performances, the comedy is probably Chaplin’s best throughout his films, and
the writing is flawless. If you haven’t seen this movie before, definitely check it out, and before
you go, please don’t forget to subscribe for more content, although no more content like this, but
if you want a selection of my best videos I have a whole playlist dedicated to that, and as always,
thank you so much for watching, and I’ll see you beautiful ladies and jellyfish next time! Shalom!