“I had a disagreement with First National [distribution house] about Il monello; it was a seven-reel film that they wanted to release in three two-reel comedies. They would only pay me $ 405,000. Since it cost me nearly half a million dollars, I replied that hell would freeze before I accepted such a proposal. They threatened to take legal action, but they knew very well they had little chance of winning. They decided to act on Mildred to obtain the seizure of the film “(C. Chaplin, My autobiography, Mondadori). A SUFFERING DIVORCE
In fact, in those weeks in which Charlie Chaplin was preparing to edit The Kid in his private life he had to face the divorce from his first wife, the actress.Mildred Harris. “Mildred seemed in a constant state of overexcitement, always looking for new horizons. After a year of marriage, she was born a baby who only lived for three days. […]. Although living in the same house, she rarely saw each other, she was very busy in her study and I in mine. On my way home from work, I found the dining table set for one. […]. From time to time she was absent for a week, without warning “. They decide to divorce by mutual agreement. Harris asks for $ 25,000, Chaplin offers him $ 100,000. She accepts but, strangely enough, she doesn’t show up to sign the agreement with her lawyers. Meanwhile, Chaplin has a tip from the environment: First National is inciting Harris, through her lawyers, to ask for a higher sum of 100,000, so that Chaplin accepts the 405.ESCAPE WITH THE FILM
At this point the intuition emerges, necessary even off the set, typical of the great directors ( De Sica , Dreyer , Hitchcock , Truffaut): “Instinct told me to go and mount it in another state. So I left for Salt Lake City with a couple of assistants and more than 120,000 meters of film, distributed on five hundred reels ”. Chaplin rents three rooms in a hotel. One is used to house the reels, in absolute secrecy, being the film of that time highly flammable, and therefore it is forbidden to host it in a hotel. Even though the reels were numbered every now and then one got lost and “we wasted time looking for it, on the bed, under the bed, in the bathroom”. The film can be edited, by hand, without equipment, with scissors and tape. CHAPLIN DRESSED AS A WOMAN
In early January 1921 Chaplin and in New York to organize the premiere of The Kid; he is staying at the Ritz Hotel. The bailiffs, sent by the First National, also on behalf of Harris’ lawyers, look for him to deliver the court document and proceed with the seizure of the pizzas. I’m on duty in the Ritz lobby. Chaplin, after two days of forced confinement, has to meet some friends: he leaves the hotel wearing a woman’s dress loaned to him by his sister-in-law, complete with a hat and veil: cinema becomes reality! SLEEPING IN THE BRONX, IN THE HOUSE OF A TAXI DRIVER
At the end of the evening, after unsuccessfully looking for a room in several hotels, the exhausted taxi driver, now it’s two in the morning, offers to host him in his council house in the Bronx. A “poorly furnished but very clean” apartment, to the delight of the taxi driver’s children and his wife. In the morning, the latter prepares him a breakfast with coffee, eggs and bacon. Meanwhile, the rumor that Charlot is in the Bronx has spread: Chaplin receives many children at home who want to see him. The following week the taxi driver, contacted by a popular weekly, after asking permission from Chaplin, wrote an article about meeting the famous actor. Spending the night as a guest in a New York council house was the other side of the moon, the answer to Hollywood’s lavish mansions, home to movie stars.DISTRIBUTORS DON’T UNDERSTAND THE MOVIE
Meanwhile, her Los Angeles attorney has solved the liquidation problem for Mildred Harris; bailiffs are recalled by the First National. Whose executives, a few days later, ask to see the film. Chaplin organizes a first reserved. At the end of the screening, the head of the distribution area did not appear enthusiastic. No applause, no compliments. They don’t understand melodrama. They expected the usual short comedies full of gags. Chaplin asks for a million and a half. They are playing to the downside. Chaplin cuts short “take it or leave it”. Everyone is embarrassed, silence. Eventually, the president, JD Williams, with a faint voice, “Charlie is a good movie, let’s talk about it”. Accept Chaplin’s proposal: the First National, after having recovered the million and a half from the tickets, agrees on 50% of the future tickets for the following 5 years. After that period the film would be returned to Chaplin’s property. FIRST IN NEW YORK
Now we can organize the first official for the press and the guests, it is January 21, 1921. Word of mouth and the press shout at the masterpiece. Starting from February 6, the First National distributes it in all American states. Chaplin was already known for successful two / three reel short films (around 30 minutes), such as The Immigrant (1917), Dog’s Life (1918) and Shoulder Arms (1918). But with The Kid, changing his style, he feared failure. The film looked different. First, it was his first feature film and, secondly, he ushered in a new way in the comic comedy genre: laughter alongside dramatic tension. Aware of the risk of the neo-genre (which historians will later define “melodrama”), he prefaced the film with a caption so that the public, who expected a series of exquisitely comic gags,PLANETARY SUCCESS
The Kid grosses $ 600,000 in the first six months of its screening. Altogether it will exceed $ 2,600,000, First National and Chaplin will be satisfied. Since 1922 The Kid has reached the main cities of the world: Paris, Berlin, Belgrade, Brussels, Stockholm, London, Calcutta, Tokyo Sidney. Chaplin himself accompanies, on tour, the release of the film in Europe, arriving in London by ship, followed by the press on board. In European cities, full of orphans of the Great War, the story of the little foundling moves whole crowds that await Charlot, filling the streets and squares. CHAPLIN GREAT CHILDREN’S DIRECTOR
In the 1910s, if you wanted to recover the costs of producing two reels, in a tearful story, “it was enough to insert a child / a dog and success was guaranteed” ( George Sadoul ). With Chaplin, for the first time a child, Jackie Coogan(six years old), he acted as an authentic actor, in a semantically strong role. In the scene where John is about to throw a stone at a window pane, his hand goes backwards against “something” unexpected: and the uniform of the neighborhood policeman who is observing him. John touches the buttons, turns slowly, discovers the imposing policeman. And masterful in changing action and attitude, inventing a gag (he plays with the stone) and walking away, first trotting then, suddenly, running away, chased by the policeman. “I rehearse the scene three or four times, then he mastered the mechanics. […] The scene was one of the best in the film »(C. Chaplin). Many directors, from the late twentieth century, will say they were inspired by Il Monello in directing children. First of all Vittorio De Sicafor Thieves of bicycles (1948), like Franco Rossi and Luigi Comencini . Francois Truffaut himself , remarking on his enlightenment of him, considered “Chaplin more important than Jesus Christ” . JAKIE COOGAN CRIES
Another perfect scene, the most dramatic of the film, is that of the little boy violently torn, by the officials of the orphanage, from the arms of Charlot, and thrown onto the back of the truck. Here Jackie had to cry. But that day on the set there was, as always, a good mood. The little one laughed. Chaplin seeks help from Jackie’s father, who is always present because of his younger son. Mr. Coogan takes his son into the dressing room and talks to him. When they leave Jackie cries loudly and big tears stream down her white cheeks. Chaplin asks his father in amazement if he had beaten him. “No, I simply told him to obey, otherwise I would have really taken him to the orphanage right away!”. Chaplin surprised, shouts to the operators: “Let’s shoot!”. AN ANTESIGNANO “PROLETARY” FILM
In 2011 the United States Library of Congress included The Kid among the films “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant”. The Kid is the first film in the history of cinema in which there is a strong social denunciation. Before German expressionism, Soviet socialist realism, French poetic realism. A story that speaks of abandoned childhood, of poor neighborhoods and villas of wealthy people, of public dormitories on the verge of decency, of an infant left in the garbage, of a homeless man who becomes an adoptive father, of the inhuman law of orphanages ready to trample feelings; the right to, at least, dream of a paradise on earth (the scene of the angels). The film risks censorship for these “proletarian” scenes and subtle contestation of power but,THE NEW AESTHETICS OF CINEMA
On the aesthetic side, Chaplin showed remarkable linguistic innovations: the staggered editing of the floors (the incipit sequence in which Edna Purvianceleaves Charity Hospital with the infant in her arms); the use of depth of field (the scene of the stolen car with the newborn, placed at an angle between a piece of wall and a vanishing point with houses in the second and third floors); the use of panoramas only if necessary; the suspense obtained with the alternate editing. Particularly innovative is the introduction of the “cinematic metaphor”: a sculptural group of a Christ carrying the cross, inserted while the single mother leaves the Charity Hospital, which means “she must carry her cross like Christ”, and simply dazzling . Thanks to Chaplin this rhetorical figure will be widely exploited by Sergej M. Ejzenstejn . ADVANCED HUMOROUS INVENTIONS
The pot of coffee with the teat mounted on the beak for the baby to suckle; the hammock-like basket with a hole that allows the “connection” with the night pot positioned below; breaking the glass of stone windows and then presenting himself as a random walking glazier; tuck a child under the covers of a dormitory bed to avoid paying him; transform a quarrel between two children into a boxing match: they are original and brilliant gags, authentically Dadaist and pre-surrealist. THE LEFT LOVES CHARLOT
Since Il monello was the first film showing the poverty of the suburbs, the struggle against the established power (the policeman, the state officials) Charlot became the idol of social redemption especially for Marxist intellectuals. Starting from 1922 many authors, especially belonging to the different historical avant-gardes, dedicated essays, articles, poems, short stories, as well as cinematographic subjects inspired by the revolutionary figure of Charlot. From the surrealist Dadaist Ivan Goll , to the surrealist Gomez de la Serna ; from the Marxists of Czech poetry Karel Teige and Vitezslav Nezval to the Soviet Marxist eccentrists who, in their Manifesto, wrote, “Charlot’s ass is more dear to us than Eleonora Duse ‘s hands! “. From the socialist writers ( Bosko Tokin and Eugen Sarin ) of the Yugoslav futurist magazine Zenit to the Polish futurists ( Anatol Stern ); from the Belgian surrealists such as Henri Michaux to the French Marxists such as Jean Cocteau and Henri Poulaille (who dedicates a long scenario to him). Lucia Joyce , daughter of James Joyce , wrote in 1924. “Charlie’s picture is on my table. His intelligent and sad eyes look at me while I try to express my admiration for this great and little comedian […] ”. CHARLIE CHAPLIN MOVES TO ROME
In 1952 Charlie Chaplin was invited by the Experimental Center of Cinematography (CSC) in Rome. A crowded screening of Vittorio de Sica ‘s Bicycle Thieves is organized for him , with the Italian director also present. “After the screening – and the precious memory of Mario Verdone , given to us, his students in the seventies – everyone goes out. Nobody saw Chaplin. De Sica, and worried. He looks a little nervous. He looks around and hesitantly goes back into the projection room. Chaplin is still sitting in his place, wiping a tear ”. In the fate of the little son ( Enzo Stajola ) of the unemployed Italian ( Lamberto Maggiorani), humiliated by the crowd for an attempted theft, reviewed the tragedy of the fathers and children abandoned by society, which he had recounted thirty years earlier.
