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Chaplin, First National, begun 1919, released 21 January 1921, his first feature as director-star: six reels. The Tramp finds an abandoned child (Jackie Coogan) and raises him in a garret, taking in windows they have broken; Edna Purviance is the mother who left the baby. During Chaplin's divorce from Mildred Harris he cut the film in a Salt Lake City hotel room and hid the reels so they could not be seized as community property. Coogan, not yet seven, matches Chaplin's timing without looking coached. The dream of heaven is a studio street with wings.
In two programmes
Pathos built into a walk. The Tramp raises a boy in a garret, the boy breaks windows, the Tramp mends them, and the film treats it as a trade. Coogan matches him beat for beat. The scene at the truck, when the authorities come, is where the method is tested.
The first feature and the first argument. A man and a boy, windows broken and mended as a trade, and a rooftop chase when the welfare men come. He cut it in a Salt Lake hotel room to keep it out of a divorce. Watch the truck. Watch the last shot, a door, and who is on the other side.
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