Kid Auto Races at Venice
| Kid Auto Races at Venice | |
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 Theatrical poster for Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914) |
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| Directed by | Henry Lehrman |
| Produced by | Mack Sennett |
| Written by | Henry Lehrman |
| Starring | Charles Chaplin Henry Lehrman Frank D. Williams Billy Jacobs Charlotte Fitzpatrick Thelma Salter Gordon Griffith |
| Cinematography | Enrique Juan Vallejo Frank D. Williams |
| Distributed by | Keystone Studios |
| Release date(s) | February 7, 1914 |
| Running time | 11 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent film English (Original titles) |
Kid Auto Races At Venice is a 1914 American-made motion picture starring Charlie Chaplin in which his "Little Tramp" character makes his first appearance.
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[edit] Synopsis
Made by Keystone Studios and directed by Henry Lehrman, in it Chaplin plays a spectator at a 'baby-cart race' in California. The spectator keeps getting in the way of the camera and interferes with the race, causing great frustration to the public and participants. The film was shot during the Junior Vanderbilt Cup[1], an actual race with Chaplin and his co-stars improvising gags in front of real-life spectators.
Unusually the camera "comes out of shot" to show a second camera filming (as though it were the first), to better explain the joke. At this stage Chaplin only gets in the way of the visible camera on screen, not the actual filming camera. In so doing it takes on a spectator's viewpoint and becomes one of the first public films to show the film camera and cameraman in operation.
[edit] Cast
- Charlie Chaplin - Tramp
- Henry Lehrman - Film Director
- Frank D. Williams - Cameraman
- Billy Jacobs - Boy
- Charlotte Fitzpatrick - Girl
- Thelma Salter - Girl
- Gordon Griffith - Boy[2][nb 1]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Brent Walker (quoted by the BFI) maintains that Chaplin, Lehrman and Williams were the only professional players, the other being members of the public.
[edit] References
- ^ Kids Auto Races at Venice, Cal. at The Charlie Chaplin Encyclopedia
- ^ Theodore Huff (1944) An Index to the Films of Charlie Chaplin, British Film Institute.
[edit] External links
- Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal. at The Charlie Chaplin Encyclopedia
- Kid Auto Races at Venice at the Internet Movie Database
- Kid Auto Races at Venice is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
- Kid Auto Races at Venice is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more] - A different version which is missing the ending.
