Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 16, 2015
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Charlie Chaplin (Modern Times) was already an international star when he decided to break out of the short-film format and make the 1921 film The Kid, 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. A family-friendly comedy-drama, the film stars Chaplin 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 movie that is, as its opening title card states, “a picture with a smile—and perhaps, a tear.”
Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions of the classic film contain the following:
- New 4K digital restoration of Charlie Chaplin’s 1972 rerelease version of the film, featuring an original score by Chaplin, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New audio commentary featuring Chaplin historian Charles Maland
- Jackie Coogan: The First Child Star, a new video essay by Chaplin historian Lisa Haven
- A Study in Undercranking, a new piece featuring silent-film specialist Ben Model
- Interviews with Coogan and actor Lita Grey Chaplin
- Excerpted audio interviews with cinematographer Rollie Totheroh and film distributor Mo Rothman
- Deleted scenes and titles from the original 1921 version of The Kid
- “Charlie” on the Ocean, a 1921 newsreel documenting Chaplin’s first return trip to Europe
- Footage of Chaplin conducting his score for The Kid
- Nice and Friendly, a 1922 silent short featuring Chaplin and Coogan, presented with a new score by composer Timothy Brock
- Trailers
- An essay by film historian Tom Gunning
Buy or Rent The Kid (1921)
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