Film: “The Kid” (1921 silent film) featuring Jay Warren, Pipe Organ

Description

Short description: “The Kid” is perhaps one of Charlie Chaplin’s most beloved films. The movie was the first feature-length film directed by Chaplin and it made a child star out of Jackie Coogan, who plays his adopted son and sidekick. “The Kid” is considered one of the greatest films of the silent era. And/Or: The Tramp cares for an abandoned child, but events put that relationship in jeopardy. Long description: Charlie Chaplin was already an international star when he decided to break out of the short-film format and make his first full-length feature. “The Kid” doesn’t merely show Chaplin at a turning point, when he proved that he was a serious film director — it remains an expressive masterwork of silent cinema. In it, he stars as his lovable Tramp character, this time raising an orphan (a remarkable young Jackie Coogan) he has rescued from the streets. Chaplin and Coogan make a miraculous pair in this nimble marriage of sentiment and slapstick, a film that is, as its opening title card states, “a picture with a smile — and perhaps, a tear.” Movie trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTlUxNzt5Kw