Trivia / The Kid (1921)

• Acting for Two: Jack Coogan played several roles in the film, as a bum who picks the Tramp's pocket, as the Devil in the Heaven sequence and as a party guest in the deleted scenes.
• Creator Breakdown: Just ten days before he began shooting this film, Charlie Chaplin and his first wife, Mildred Harris, lost their newborn son, Norman Spencer Chaplin, who lived only three days. Chaplin and Harris went on to divorce (probably a Grief-Induced Split in part, though their short marriage was already crumbling beforehand) while the film was still in production.
• Deleted Scenes: When Chaplin rereleased the film with a score he removed three small scenes that were Character Development for the Mother:
  • The mother walks pass a church where a wedding has finished the bride is younger than her groom and symbolically he steps on some fallen flowers. The Mother watching the stained glass window lights up her head.
  • After leaving the baby in the car the Mother briefly considers Suicide on a bridge but is stopped by a baby who has wandered away from their nurse. After the nurse recovers her charge the Mother decides to return to John.
  • The Mother now rich arrives at a party where her old love is, it’s clear they might reconcile but she would hope that she might get John back as well.
• Development Hell: In May 2017, it was announced that FilmNation Entertainment is remaking the film as an animated sci-fi movie. "The Kid, an animated adventure" will be directed by Christian Volckman and Rupert Wyatt and is "inspired by the characters and themes in The Kid". As of 2019 it was still in development.
• Enforced Method Acting: For the scene in which the Kid is taken from the Tramp and nearly carted away to a workhouse, Charlie Chaplin stated in his autobiography that the young Jackie Coogan was made to cry by his father, who told him that if he would not cry in the scene, he would be sent to an actual workhouse. While Jackie was fine afterwards, said on-set mistreatment of children in early Hollywood Movies led to attempts of protection of Child Actors and the implementation of The Coogan Act which requests parents of Child Actors to save some of the earnings for the child’s future.
• Real-Life Relative: Jackie Coogan's father Jack played several roles in the film.
• Troubled Production: Edna Purviance began drinking during the filming and Chaplin threaten to replace her but she finished filming.
  • Famously Mildred Harris’ lawyers tried to steal the unfinished film as property in the divorce, so Charlie completed the negative in a hotel in Salt Lake City so they could say the film was finished.
• Working Title: The Waif.
• Write What You Know: The portrayal of poverty and the cruelty of welfare workers are reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's own childhood in London. This makes it the most autobiographical film he ever made.
  • Also Charlie and his first wife Mildred Harris lost their own baby son Norman Spencer Chaplin everyone felt that Charlie treated Jackie Coogan like his lost child.

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