1921 - Not Rated - 50 min
Director: Charles Chaplin
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Jackie Coogan, Carl Miller
This was a new one for me, a gift from a friend. I think it might actually be the oldest (and shortest film on the wall). I wasn't really sure what to expect, especially since I've never watched a black and white silent film on DVD before... kinda cool how long these films have survived, huh? And now we can just pop 'em into the DVD player.
Anyway, it's a really sweet movie and I liked it a lot. Very simple and straightforward; a young mother makes an impulsive decision to leave her baby in a stranger's car because she can't raise him on her own. The baby ends up getting found by the Tramp (Charlie Chaplin, obvi) who raises him as his own. Things get complicated 5 years later when the boy takes ill and his mother finds him. It was written, produced, directed, and scored by the star himself, a pretty impressive feat you wouldn't see in Hollywood today. The movie's simple, only four billed characters, and maybe a dozen extras, and it gets right to the point without skirting around it: the Tramp and the Kid love each other like father and son, and will fight and fight to be together no matter what.
It's really touching and definitely an important piece of film history. And all that on a little disc.
Fun bit of trivia, the kid grew up to play the original Uncle Fester on "The Addams Family" TV show.
ReplyDeleteI saw that on IMDB because the name sounded familiar. Crazy!
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