The Kid (1921 film) The Kid (1921 film) The Kid is a 1921 American silent comedy-drama film written by, produced by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin, and features Jackie Coogan as his adopted son and sidekick. This was Chaplin's first full-length film as a director (he had been a co-star in 1914's "Tillie's Punctured Romance"). It was a huge success, and was the second-highest-grossing film in 1921, behind "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse". In 2011, "The Kid" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Innovative in
Charlie Chaplin to have little interest in a Chaplin film without Chaplin, and it was a box office disappointment. The filmmaker was hurt by this failure – he had long wanted to produce a dramatic film and was proud of the result – and soon withdrew "A Woman of Paris" from circulation. Chaplin returned to comedy for his next project. Setting his standards high, he told himself "This next film must be an epic! The Greatest!" Inspired by a photograph of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, and later the story of the Donner Party of 1846–47, he made what Geoffrey Macnab calls