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The Kid
(1910) United States of America
B&W : One reel / 981 feet
Directed by Frank Powell
Cast: Henry B. Walthall [Walter Holden], Jack Pickford [the kid], Florence Barker [Doris Marshall], [?] Mary Pickford?
Biograph Company production; distributed by Biograph Company. / Cinematography by Arthur Marvin. / © 18 April 1910 by Biograph Company [J140598]. Released 14 April 1910. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Comedy.
Reviews: [Variety, 23 April 1910, page ?] The Biograph Co. calls “The Kid” a farce comedy. Anyone who ever produced a farce comedy did so with the intention of bringing laughs. No one laughed during the display of The Kid on the sheet the day it was seen. So it can’t be a “farce comedy,” though it isn’t serious, and has a good idea, very poorly worked out. A youngster playing at home with his toys is togged out in true western style-sombrero, big gun and mustache. The mustache should have been funny, but it wasn’t. The boy goes prospecting with his father, and they meet a girl, and the girl climbs up into a tower, and the father climbs up after her, and the boy takes the ladder away, and then they do something else, and then the father meets the girl again (up in the tower), and then the boy joins their hands, and then probably they are married, and then the light goes out — thank goodness. // [The Moving Picture World, 11 June 1910, page ?] “The Kid” is an abrupt title for “the pranks of an indulged boy.” There is something of a pleasing comedy in this, the pranks of an indulged boy need not be called bad—boys will be boys — and, when as a result of these “American boy” performances, a motherless, father-indulged boy brings into his home a new and evidently worthy mother, the subject is good and may be enjoyed, as indeed it seems to be by the audience.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 7 August 2023.
References: Spehr-American p. 2 : Website-AFI.
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