Kid Auto Races At Venice (1914)

Kid Auto Races At Venice (1914)

 

Kid Auto Races at Venice (also known as The Pest) is a 1914 American film starring Charles Chaplin

   

It is the first film in which his "Little Tramp" character makes an appearance before the public

The first film to be produced that featured the character was actually Mabel's Strange Predicament; it was shot a few days before Kid Auto Races but released two days after it; this film, meanwhile, was released only five days after the first film in which Chaplin appeared, Making a Living

Kid Auto Races was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress on December 14, 2020

First film released with Charlie Chaplin wearing his tramp costume. One single recurrent gag, the tramp wants to steal the show at a Kid Auto Race in Venice, California

Review

There is mostly a historical interest for this film, the first one to be released by Mack Sennett's Keystone Picture Studio with Charlie playing his tramp character

It was filmed shortly after the first film where he played that character, Mabel's Strange Predicament which was released a couple of days later. Charlie Chaplin co-stars with Henry Lehrman who also directed the film. The single gag endlessly repeated is a bit limited compared to other Charlie Chaplin's movies, but the clear improvisation and the presence of the cars racing and the crowd cheering give it a touching authenticity. Compared to Making a Living filmed earlier in 1914, the evolution in filming technique is interesting, the shots are more varied and the camera is no longer static but pans across the crowd

Synopsis

During a kid auto race, the tramp constantly tries to steal the show, parading in the middle of the track and in front of a camera filming the event, despite being repeatedly thrown away by an increasingly irritated film director. The film is presented as a letter from Charlie to his sweetheart and finishes with a title card with a funny allusion to early film censorship in Hollywood: "Just heard my picture won't pass the Censor"

 

 

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