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Variety, January 21, 1921

The Kid (1921)

The Man	Carl Miller
The Woman	Edna Purviance
The Kid	Jackie Coogan
The Tramp	Charlie Chaplin
The Policeman	Tom Wilson

Charlie Chaplin, after a long absence, comes back in "The Kid". It is a six-reeler, 5,300 feet long, and a corker. It will be called better than "Shoulder Arms" or "A Dog’s Life", and is to be sent forth by Associated First National.

In this, the longest subject he has ever released, Chaplin is less of the buffoon and more of the actor, but his comedy is all there and there is not a dull moment, once the comedian comes into the picture, which is along about the middle of the first reel.

"The Kid", for which a year’s labor is claimed by the distributors, has all the earmarks of having been carefully thought out and painstakingly directed, photographed and assembled. The cutting in some places, amounts almost to genius. Introduced as a "picture with a smile — perhaps a tear", it proves itself just that. For while it will move people to uproarious laughter and keep them in a state of unceasing delight, it also will touch their hearts and win sympathy, not only for the star, but for his leading woman, and little Jackie Coogan.

It is almost impossible to refrain from superlatives in referring to this child. In the title role his acting is so smooth as to give him equal honors with the star. Usually Chaplin is the picture, but in "The Kid" he has to divide with the boy, whose character work probably never has been equaled by a child artist. Edna Purviance is attractive as the unmarried mother of the kid, but hers is comparatively a small role.

Chaplin indulges in the usual broad references where he handles a moist infant, and rather overdoes it. Some of this play could be cut out to advantage, and he might also eliminate the flash of the Savior bearing the cross, a piece of symbolism flashed on the screen the emphasize the burden of "the woman whose sin was motherhood", and perhaps, to give the film tone.

Outside of these two spots, the picture is flawless in treatment and has so many good points, artistically and dramatically, it would seem the better discretion if the cited spots, potential points of attack, were discarded. The action is lightning-fast and the tempo never lags.

The picture, as is to be expected, does not have its action in regal splendors, but in tenements, police stations and back alleys. So there are no "sets" to it. But the photography is sharp all the way and the lightings, especially in the night scenes, are splendid.

There are characteristic "Chaplin touches". A fine instance of imagination is where he dreams of Heaven. His slum alley is transformed into a bit of Paradise, with everybody — including his Nemesis, the cop, and a big bully who had wrecked a brick wall and bent a lamppost swinging at Charlie — turned into angels. Here, with Satan doing a Tex Rickard, a cockfight between Charlie and the bully is promoted and pulled off and feathers fly freely. At another point, Charlie has "the kid"" an infant, in a hammock with an ingeniously arranged coffee pot serving as a nursing bottle. Some of the best business is here.

"The Kid" starts with "the woman" issuing from a maternity hospital, bearing her child in her arms. She is distraught and, after scribbling a note, "please love and care for this orphan", abandons the infant in a limousine. Auto thieves get away with the car, unaware of the its cargo. They drive to the slum district, where a wail attracts them to the child and they toss it in an alley. Charlie, ragged but debonair, find the baby, and tries to get rid of it by putting it in a perambulator with another. But the mother objects and Charlie returns to leave it where he found it. A policeman makes him change his mind. He then hands it to an old man, but the latter drops it into the original perambulator. Chaplin is blamed and beaten by the woman, and forced to take the child to his garret house. Five years pass and the boy, devoted to his foster parent, is an enthusiastic assistant in his business, which is glazing., The boy breaks windows and Charlie, "happening" along at the psychological moment, repairs them.

Meantime, the mother of Jackie has risen to fame as an actress and when visiting the slums, gives the boy a toy without knowing it is her lost child. Subsequently, she holds the child in her arms after he has had a fight and urges Charlie to get a doctor. The latter sends the county authorities after the child, but they get him only after a terrific battle in which little Jackie wields a sledge hammer with all the delightful zest that Chaplin himself could have put into it. As the boy is carried to a waiting auto truck, Charlie flees over roofs, then drops into the truck and rescues the child. The doctor, who has taken the identification slip from Charlie, is at the house when the mother arrives. Seeing the note, she realizes Jackie is her own boy, and puts a reward offer in the newspapers. This excites the cupidity of the keeper of a lodging house where Charlie and the boy are asleep. He steals the boy and takes him to the police station, where the mother comes and claims him.

Chaplin wanders all night seeking the boy in vain and returns to his slum, worn out. It is then he has his dream of heaven. He is awakened by the policeman, who takes him to the home of the actress, where Jackie and his mother greet him and drag him into the house. This is the end of the picture, the star’s back being to the audience at the fade-out.

Chaplin, in his more serious phases, is a revelation, and his various bits of laugh-making business the essence of originality. No better satire has ever been offered by the comedian than the instruction of his ragamuffin kid seated on a curbstone manicuring his nails, and his instruction of the boy in table etiquet (sic) will register as one of the best things he has done

copyright © 1921 Variety