FILM 1479: THE KID
TRIVIA: For the scene in which the
Kid is taken from the Tramp and nearly carted away to a workhouse, Charles 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.
The production company tried to
cheat Charles Chaplin by paying
him for this six-reel film what they would ordinarily pay him for a two-reel
film, which was about $500,000. Chaplin took the unassembled film out of state
until the company agreed to the $1.5 million he was supposed to be paid, plus
half the surplus profits on rentals, along with reversion of the film to him
after five years on the rental market.
The failure of the original
copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into
public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD
copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the
market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor
quality, having been duped from second, or third, generation (or more) copies
of the film.
