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 |
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| Distributed by | Keystone Studios |
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Release date
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Running time
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6 minutes, 19 seconds |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent film English (Original titles) |
Kid Auto Races at Venice (also known as The Pest) is a 1914 American film starring Charles Chaplin in which his "Little Tramp" character makes his first appearance in a film exhibited 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.
Made by Keystone Studios and directed by Henry Lehrman, the movie portrays Chaplin as a spectator at a "baby-cart race" in Venice, Los Angeles. 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, an actual race with Chaplin and Lehrman improvising gags in front of real-life spectators.
Unusually the camera breaks the fourth wall 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 a film camera and cameraperson in operation.
By 1914, the Vanderbilt Cup had become an important automobile racing event in the United States, and the 1914 event was to be held in Santa Monica, California. The city decided to sponsor a junior version of the event, apparently with several classes of engines and with age limits for the drivers. Some classes had no engines and used a ramp to accelerate the cars in a manner similar to soap box derby races. Other classes used small engines. Chaplin's movie includes one scene shot at the bottom of the ramp used for the engineless races. There is no evidence that Junior Vanderbilt Cups were held either before or after the 1914 event. Actual silver cups were awarded.
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