The Kid
Oh, the plight of being a child movie star: fame, fortune, attention and (in most cases) the worst sexual abuse imaginable. The roadmap to this entertainment phenomenon came in the form of the first (and biggest) child movie star of the silent era in young Jackie Coogan, a lad who suffered the sad fate of losing the large fortune he made during his run in the 1920s to the clutches of his greedy mother and conniving stepfather who ran off with his cash and thus relegated him to the fate of being a semi popular character actor who finally achieved everlasting fame and notoriety after being cast as Uncle Fester in the 1960s Addams Family TV show, playing the role as if Vincent Price and Curly Howard had gotten together and had a baby. Coogan did have one major plus as a kid actor though: his father (Jack Coogan Sr.), himself a former Vaudeville star who would not only coach his young son extensively through his scenes, but would also work closely with directors and other filmmakers in helping them achieve their cinematic vision where his son was involved (plus presumably he also protected his son from any sexual predators in the vicinity who would be into little boys and there were always plenty of those in Hollywood). Speaking of sexual predators, Coogan would kick off his historic run in Hollywood by first working with the renowned Charlie Chaplin (at that time still rebounding from divorcing his 17 year old wife), the most famous and highest paid movie star in the world whom in his movies had almost exclusively portrayed a poverty stricken bum with a heart of gold. Enter The Little Tramp, loved by his audiences but hated by his ex wives. This 1921 release was the perfect crowd pleasing trifle for its time, again showing The Tramp (in his first feature length film after cleaning up handsomely in the short film market) showing his goodness after a long backstory depicting “The Kid” being born and then blown off by his real father before his mother (played by longtime Chaplin girlfriend and best friend Edna Purviance, whom he never married but still treated more generously than most of his actual exes, keeping her financially happy even after she retired and died alone) tries to stash the little one in a rich man’s automobile hoping to get the kid a free ride, only for the car to be stolen by two criminals (wearing terribly applied silent movie makeup) who discover the baby in the back seat and then chuck it into a back alley where Chaplin’s Tramp finds it and takes it to his abandoned building in the grotto slum where he lives (which includes an hilariously off color bit concerning Tramp not knowing the baby’s gender). Flash forward 5 years later and the admittedly adorable Coogan has in essence become Tramp’s Mini Me, wearing his own little slum outfit and having learned from his adoptive dad valuable life skills such as cooking pancakes and partaking in the destruction of private property which leads to Tramp posing as a repairman and overcharging for repairs on the suckers who don’t know that he’s connected to the perpetrator. Meanwhile, the child’s Mom has suddenly become rich and famous (as a singer or some such thing never clearly explained) and is now on the hunt for her boy with the plot hinging on that reunion and whatever she decides to do with the homeless man who comes attached to that arrangement. Chaplin mostly maintains a tasteful tone during his scenes with Coogan apart from a wild kissing scene that at least can be chalked up to the overall emotional impact of that sequence. With the premise established, everything comes down to a couple of random sidebars that vary in their entertainment value, the first being an hilarious fight sequence where (since adults like to stand around and watch small children fight), Coogan knocks the shit out of a bully left and right as Tramp cheers his boy on, only to be confronted by the bully’s older brother (who looks like a Golem or some other mythical horror movie creature) forcing Tramp to suddenly cheap shot Coogan, knocking him out and allowing the (sobbing) bully kid to win the fight with Tramp avoiding a beating from the freakish older brother. The other notable distracting sidebar is even stranger, featuring Tramp going to Heaven after falling asleep (but not actually dying) where he gets fitted for angel wings but after an invasion of demons (with devil horns), Tramp starts tearing up Heaven and when he tries to fly away with his angel wings, he gets shot down which implies that he was killed in Heaven before he wakes up. Definitely an excursion by Chaplin into more surreal, acid trip friendly material, but the real story here is Coogan getting to share in the glory (something Chaplin didn’t always do) as someone whom Chaplin obviously respected and appreciated quite a bit, as many years later in 1972 when Chaplin briefly came back to America to get his Honorary Oscar, Coogan (still sporting his crazy, bald Uncle Fester look) was part of an entourage waiting to greet him at the airport and when Chaplin departed the plane, he immediately recognized Coogan, embracing him and not only literally telling him that he was the only person there that he really wanted to see, but also happily telling Coogan’s family on hand that he considered their father to be a genius. Well, you could do worse than that…
8/10