Written, produced and directed by Charles Chaplin

Cinematography by Roland Totheroh and Jack Wilson

Music by Charles Chaplin.

Cast (in credits order):

• Charles Chaplin: The Tramp
• Edna Purviance: Mother
• Jackie Coogan: The Kid
• May White: Policeman's Wife
• Tom Wilson: Policeman
• Henry Bergman: Night Shelter Keeper
• Charles Reisner: Bully
• Raymond Lee: His Kid Brother
• Jules Hanft: Physician
• S.D. Wilcox: Cop
• Frank Campeau: Welfare Officer
• John McKinnon: Chief of Police
• Lita Grey: "The Flirting Angel"

• What makes this early film about childhood different from the depictions of childhood we’ve seen thus far in novels?  Does this twentieth-century child differ from Victorian depictions of children?
• How does Chaplin idealize and sentimentalize the angelic "Kid"? 
• What social issues does the film use the "Kid" character to represent?
• What larger social issues does the film address?
• Though sentimental in its depiction of childhood, The Kid also critiques governmental authority (the police, social workers) as utilitarian: machine-like, dehumanizing, lacking in real compassion.   Look for ways that the film represents this visually through the images and verbally through the intertitles.