Episode 139 - The Kid

[00:00:00] Welcome back to Movie Mistrial, the podcast where we put the IMDb Top 250 on trial. I'm Johannes. And I'm Raji. Today we're traveling back more than a century to Charlie Chaplin's The Kid, a silent film that helped prove comedy and drama could coexist in perfect harmony. Released in 1921, The Kid follows Chaplin's iconic tramp as he unexpectedly becomes the guardian of an abandoned child, forming one of cinema's most memorable and heartfelt relationships.

[00:00:29] It's funny, heartbreaking and remarkably modern in its emotional storytelling. More than a century later, it continues to resonate with audiences and remains one of Charlie Chaplin's most celebrated films. But here is the question. Is The Kid a timeless masterpiece whose emotion transcends generations? Or a historically important film whose reputation has outgrown the experience itself? Let's flip the coin because today, The Kid is on trial.

[00:00:57] Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Alright, my companion in crime. Hats or tails? I'm gonna go with tails today.

[00:01:26] Tails it is. Good to me. The day I decided to switch allegiances. I don't know. I'm actually torn. You know what? I'll argue for this film. I'll argue for it. I'll argue for it. I'll argue for it. Yeah, I'll argue for it. Bold. Alright, guess I'm going first then. Here we go.

[00:01:55] The witness will address this quote as judge or your aunt. Ladies and gentlemen, The Kid, thankfully, is only like 65 minutes long. At the core of this film, we have a mother that heartlessly abandons her child, puts it in a rich person's car.

[00:02:14] And then, due to circumstances that are, you know, circumstances, the tramp picks up the child and tries to pawn off the child to another random person. And, but then ends up living with the kid and then teaches the kid to be a criminal.

[00:02:39] And then the mother, a couple years later, finds the kid again and wants to have the kid back because now she's rich. And it's just kind of fundamentally, the story is crazy. It is, it is also, if we just think about that, you know, there's a mother that is, she cannot provide for the kid.

[00:03:06] And then she makes it, you know, she turns out to be a star and lives in a mansion and is rich. And then she is like, you know, takes these backsies on the kid that she abandoned for five years. It is a little strange that we go from a psychedelic kind of nightmare dream sequence to everybody lived happy ever after is a little strange. A lot about this film is just strange.

[00:03:32] And it's just kind of made for the slapstick of it all because it's, it's, it's pretty, pretty dark story. But it's kind of told with this. Look at us. We're kind of quirky and funny. Tone is all over the place. It's thankfully the film is short, but it's, it's, it's a strange one. I don't fully understand why this is so revered as being chaplains, one of chaplains best.

[00:03:54] If we think about films like modern times, at least with those films, we had gigantic set pieces and kind of interesting visuals. Both of which we didn't necessarily have in this film either. Here we had very noticeable makeup and kind of to age people and very noticeable costume choices to make people look more bulky. It just feels sloppier than other Charlie Chaplin films.

[00:04:21] And yeah, that's where I'm starting. I'm sorry. I think probably the main argument I would have against that is that this movie came quite a while before Modern Family, the Modern Times movie came out. Like the kid was made and filmed in 1921 and Modern Family was filmed in 1936.

[00:04:48] And I think this movie feels like an experiment in a sense, because it's trying to tell a story of, of, it's trying to see if the medium of silent film can portray a story as complicated as the one that was portrayed in this movie.

[00:05:05] In a sense, we've seen that even Charlie Chaplin in this movie hasn't got it to the point where he takes over the whole screen, the role as the main character. We see the fact that, what's his name? The kid, Jackie Coogan in this movie, gets a real opportunity to shine. I think the story in the movie is very human.

[00:05:31] Then, somebody who is drowned and overwhelmed decides to try to find a better life for their kids. They put the kid in a car that belonged to a rich person, hoping that the rich person can foster the kid and bring them up. Second thoughts, a few minutes later, and the car has been stolen. So this is a circumstance.

[00:05:53] The humor works in this movie because, you know, the Charlie Chaplin character, the tramp, doesn't want the responsibility of the kid. But by virtue of circumstances and the fact that the cop is always there, walking around, parading left and right, he's forced to keep the kid. Because everybody in the area now assumes that the kid that he picks up is his.

[00:06:23] And I think that as the kid grows up, we get to experience how he decides to raise him. One of the things that I actually appreciated in this movie was that I think he genuinely cares for this baby boy. And as the kid grows up, we see him sacrificing food, engaging the kid entirely in his trade. I mean, his trade is crying.

[00:06:50] But I think that the kid never felt lonely. He felt like he was part of the whole thing. And there were lots of very, very funny scenes in this film. Like the scene where the kid is running around, breaking the glass. And, you know, spoiler alert for a movie that came out in 1921. He's going around, breaking the glass. And Charlie Chaplin is fixing it after. Some of those scenes were really, really funny. Some of the scenes with the cops were really funny. But I did want to call out the scene that, you know, the kid was fighting out with the bully.

[00:07:20] That had me stitches. Because I could see the transformation of the tramp as he initially goes in to protect his son, in quotes. And, you know, after he sees that his son is winning the fight, he starts to support him. And then the guy's brother comes in and everything just goes all right. But I thought that some of the scenes were funny. You said that there was not a lot of set pieces.

[00:07:49] I agree with that. But I think that that can be justified because of the time, the release date of this film compared to what we got in modern times. Yeah, that's where I start. So, yeah, I mean, it's I think part of the kind of in quotes problem of this film is it's it's over 100 years old now.

[00:08:15] So it's if we just apply kind of modern viewing conventions and standards to this film. This film will always have some issues. Right. I think it's just kind of the the way that the silent films are paced is just for for our viewing habits is just too slow in a way.

[00:08:44] I think the way does the narration is happening through title cards. It's it's just very kind of taking you out of whatever is happening in the action right now. And then another direct result of this is that the plot has to be very, very simple because there's not a lot you can kind of convey with a little title card here and there that kind of tells you what people are saying.

[00:09:07] So I think kind of fundamentally this this movie somewhat has a problem because it is just kind of not, you know, modern conventions in a way. And it's you cannot go deep into real character and kind of motivations and story. And, you know, so kind of a result from that as well as it's like we don't have kind of a traditional kind of arc in a way.

[00:09:33] We see the lady that that that I want to say donates her child, but but she just, you know, abandons her child, gets rich and then takes her child back. There's not really character growth if we think about it. And if you just want to kind of dissect that a little bit, it's also awfully convenient that she happens to find the one kid that she abandoned and all that.

[00:10:00] Right. So so there's not a lot of I think the only reason why she she got the kid back is because her circumstances have changed. But it's also a little weird that after five years, it's like, oh, well, now I can provide for the kid. So you're my kid. So I think that's kind of problematic. If we look at the tramp, I think the tramp is the tramp. There's not a lot of character growth of that we've seen throughout the films.

[00:10:26] And the kid, I mean, the kid is just kind of growing up as a, you know, hustler kid, basically, colluding to make money, stealing and all the crime stuff. But he gets away with it because he's a kid. So it's like, you know, at the end of the day, there's there's not a lot really that happens. This film is very, very simple. There's a lot of things you can just foresee by convention of slapstick comedy.

[00:10:56] You know, when when he's getting very charming with the woman that he's kind of replacing a window for. And then that happens to be the wife of the police officer. Like all that is like, OK, yeah, it's just, you know, for the comedy of it all. But it's so so shallow that it's it's just a little hard to re to be really invested, I think, and to really root for this film because everything is so out in the open.

[00:11:24] And it's it's it's just very flat. I think it's kind of one of my problems. It's like not a lot happens. There's no character growth. It's not really deep emotions, in my opinion. It's all very shallow. And I think that's a problem for the film. I want to not detract from the fact that this was actually his first film as well. The Kid was Charlie Chaplin's first film ever. First movie that he ever did.

[00:11:53] And from that perspective, when we consider where the tramp eventually went, because you mentioned that the tramp was always a tramp. I think that the fact that the tramp is fully developed as a character in this movie and we don't see a lot of growth in him in other ones feels like at the point of this movie, the tramp itself was well defined. And I think that that's an achievement in itself.

[00:12:20] So I don't want to detract from it. I think that that is actually quite good. And by this particular point in time, there was no convention of what a movie should be, how long a movie should fill, how long a movie should last. You know, the movie is just under 60 minutes. But I felt like we had every single part of it. We had the beginning of the movie where the movie is set. We had the middle.

[00:12:49] And we had the end, the conclusion. And I thought that the conclusion was good. I also want to argue against the point where the woman doesn't grow. I feel like there was some growth in the woman, even if it's off screen. How I interpreted the film, because this movie is silent, so everybody has to interpret it in their own way, is a woman who is down on a lock, leaves a kid in a car. She has second thoughts, and by the time she comes back, the kid is missing.

[00:13:17] Over time, she's filled with regret, and she cries into the home of the people who she left the kid in. Whose car did she left the kid in? After years, she grows, and she becomes an important person in society. She's still wrecked with guilt, so she goes to the poor houses where she sees other kids,

[00:13:45] and she tries to take care of them. She's particularly fascinated by this young boy who she sees, and she continually visits until she finds out that there was a letter, the hard letter that she left in his cloth was found on him, and she wanted the kid back as soon as possible. And to the point that she gave a $1,000 reward to anybody who brings the kid back.

[00:14:15] But instead of just keeping the kid, she invited the tramp also to come over. So this was not a situation where she just took the kid and wanted to just keep the kid all to herself. She also invited the tramp over, and he got a chance to either say goodbye to him, or at least have visiting rights for somebody who we took care of for such a long time. So I don't think that she was entirely callous.

[00:14:43] I don't think her character... I think that the growth we saw in her character was from somebody who was unsympathetic to her situation, who was carrier first, to somebody who eventually realized that she needed somebody in her life, so she brings even the poor people into her homes. And I think that there is some growth to that. And I think that the movie has a good act for somebody...

[00:15:13] Even the character of the tramp started off not wanting the kid, and by the end, he's fighting everybody to keep the kid for himself. So there is growth in all those characters. And I think there's... The young boy did an amazing job too, especially in the fight scenes. And he was quite the fiendish kid. Yeah. Those are my points. All right. Well, I got nothing else.

[00:15:42] Happy to go to the sidebar. Sidebar. Overruled. Sidebar. Guilty. Speculation. Dearsay. Bailiff. Briefcase. Disregard. In my chamber. Stop Bieber and the witness. Arrest. We could totally be lawyers. Sidebar. Sidebar. Yeah. I was wondering if I should say sidebar silently. Yeah. It's a movie. I like the film. You did? Yeah. I don't know. I did like the film.

[00:16:12] I just recommend that. Chaplin films are not by films. And that's fine. You know, like I said, I'm glad it was a short film. Yes. That's the most important part. I agree with that. Because drawing this out would have been kind of crazy. The thing that I mentioned, kind of the costuming and the makeup. Like on some of these folks, the makeup is so theatrical.

[00:16:39] It's so obvious that it really took me out. Like especially kind of the kind of bully characters. Like that fighter person, the brother, the big brother. Like his very obviously padded kind of top to make him look buff. It's just like, it looks so bad to me. Yeah. Yeah. The limited sets are whatever. I think that's fine. There are movies that do this to this day.

[00:17:09] You could argue, you know, the Avengers of the world have also very limited sets because they film everything. So, so that's fine. But yeah, I mean, it's, I can understand the appeal from a hundred years ago that people are like, oh, this is a heartfelt story. Because I could see that this is a very relevant story for the time. But I think for modern times, it's just kind of a, yeah. You know? Yeah.

[00:17:39] I mean, he made a movie called Modern Times. I thought the movie was good. I think that I agree with you on the length. I think if the movie was longer than, you know, 57 minutes or however long that movie was, I probably would have dinked it. But the movie was a quick watch. It was almost as short as a TV episode that exists today.

[00:18:08] And from that specific, like, I thought that, you know, it didn't outstay its welcome. I think that there were some interesting theatrical pieces, especially in that, the ending of the film where he was having the dream sequence. That was a little weird. But I mean, I kind of let it go. Mostly because of the transition back to the real world.

[00:18:33] I thought the transition back to the real world where he woke up with the cup, you know, like shaking him back to life was very interesting. And I think that there are nuggets of the brilliance of Charlie Chaplin in this movie. And you felt like he was limited by the technology that he had.

[00:18:56] And that was proven true because we got to see films like Modern Times where it's remarkable what he was able to do with his brain. So, yes, I thought the movie was really good. I thought the kid was really good. And, yeah, I wasn't engrossed. I'm not going to lie. I wasn't engrossed in the film. But I think that there were some scenes that were really, really funny that actually got me in tears. That I was laughing so hard. Like the scene with the fight.

[00:19:25] I was laughing my ass off because it's something that I can relate to. It's something that I can relate to. I've seen that happen in real life. And that whole sequence was as realistic as it gets. But, yeah, I like the film. Yeah, yeah. Interesting thing about the child, the child actor, Jackie Coogan.

[00:19:47] He is responsible for a protective law for child actors that basically it's Coogan's law. And basically what that means is that 15% of the earnings of any child actor in acting need to be put into a trust fund.

[00:20:09] Because what happened with him is that his family and his parents basically took all the money that he earned as a kid, as a child actor. Because they were in charge. And he didn't have financial power over his own money. So his parents kind of exploited him and his child star-ness for the 1920s. And kind of fleeced him dry. And, yeah, he's responsible for some protective laws. So we can appreciate that.

[00:20:39] We love that. But that's kind of cool to see, you know, the actual child that is responsible for that, I think. And he had a great career after this. And I think it looked like his dad is the pickpocket in that overnight hotel. Oh, yeah? Huh? But the other person that's sleeping, but... Mm-hmm. Pickpocketing. Oh, that was a funny scene, too. Yeah. It was instinct.

[00:21:09] He was putting his hands in just by instinct. I'm just a pickpocketer. I just pickpocket. Anyway. Yeah. That's interesting. My wife mentioned it to me yesterday, too. Basically, he had, like, millions of dollars that his parents spent. And by the time he grew up, he only had $125,000 left. Yeah. But, yeah. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad. And I'm glad it has expanded to TikTokers, too.

[00:21:43] He did? What? Yeah. No, the law, the Coogan's law, expanded to TikTokers. You know, those TikTokers that have their kids on screen, making us watch little kids do whatever the parents want them to do. Yeah. Yeah, it expanded to them, too. So, I'm very happy about that. I'm very happy about that. So, yeah. You know, TikTok people, don't do that. Don't exploit your children, please.

[00:22:09] I mean, if they exploit their kids and the kids get to live a good life, well, I don't know. I guess it depends on what kind of exploitation it is. Minor exploitation is okay. Not endorsed. Not endorsed by anybody. Yeah, I'm not signing off on that statement. But, you know, it's okay. Speaking of, that's all I had. That's all I have, too.

[00:22:36] Hey, it's a 57-minute movie with nobody talking. There's really not much we can say about this story. Speaking of movies that are short. No. Where was I going with this on this journey? Next up, it jumped into the IMDb Top 250 because it's a Christopher Nolan film. And, of course, it did. The Odyssey. Yeah. Looking forward to it. I haven't watched it yet. Looking forward to watching it and talking about it next episode.

[00:23:06] Excellent. Until then, though, where can people find us? They can find us on Instagram, Facebook, X... What? Blue Sky? Oh, yeah. Blue Sky. I'm not on any social media, so I don't really know much about this stuff. And at Movie Mistrial. Or you can send us an email to... Contact at MovieMistrial.com All right. Cool. Well, adios. Adios. Auf Wiedersehen.