TheLittleSongbird Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors. He did do better than 'Kid Auto Races at Venice', his directing debut and the short that introduced us to the iconic character The Tramp. Can understand why the Keystone period suffered from not being as best remembered or highly remembered than his later efforts, but they are mainly decent and important in their own right. 'Kid Auto Races at Venice' is a long way from a career high, but does have historical significance for obvious reasons. 'Kid Auto Races at Venice' is not as hilarious, charming or touching as his later work and a good deal of other shorts in the same period. The story is flimsy and the production values not as audacious. For someone who was new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'Kid Auto Races at Venice' is not bad at all. While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable for so early on and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy or repetitive shtick. The Tramp did become more likeable later but again he was still evolving. Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'Kid Auto Races at Venice' is humorous, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short. Overall, far from one of Chaplin's best but pretty good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Lee Eisenberg Cinema was in its relative infancy when an English immigrant to the United States donned a bowler hat, fake moustache and notched cane, and gave the world one of the most famous characters. Charlie Chaplin had debuted in a movie called "Making a Living" (as a non-Tramp character) and had filmed a movie before "Kid Auto Races at Venice", but this was the first released movie in which audiences saw the bumbling but kindhearted man in the ill-fitting clothes.Because cinema was a new phenomenon, movies didn't yet have complex plots, and there was no sound, no color, and no star system. It wasn't until a few months after the release that Chaplin directed his first movie, and so one might interpret the Tramp's interfering with the filming of the races as Chaplin's trying to figure out the path that he wanted to take in movies. Well, we should be glad that he took the path that he did, because he gave us some of the greatest movies ever. Most importantly, anyone who likes to learn about cinema history should definitely watch "Kid Auto Races at Venice".Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter Oona co-starred on "Game of Thrones". I wonder how "Game of Thrones" would be if the Little Tramp were a character.

Jay Raskin Keystone and Max Sennett liked to improvise stories as they went along. He was the first guerrilla filmmaker (to use a phrase that was popular in the 1960's).Henry Pathe Lehrman was assigned to direct Chaplin after Sennett hired him. As we know they did not get along. Lehrman was perhaps understandably jealous. Chaplin had been hired to replace Ford Sterling as Keystone's lead comic. Lehrman probably thought that he should get a shot as he had been working with Sennett for some four years, with over 50 films to his acting credits and some 35 to his director credits, and Chaplin was a vaudevillian who had not made a film before.One can see this film as a kind of test for Chaplin. Given just an event for the background, could Chaplin come up with a film story on the spur of the moment. It was almost an intelligence test, like putting a new rat in a maze to see if it can find the cheese. Only in this case, the rat breaks all the records for finding the cheese. Chaplin passes the test with flying colors.Chaplin holds to a single idea or theme and just repeats and elaborates on it, like a Baroque musical work by Bach. Chaplin is just a by-stander at the event who becomes fascinated by the documentary camera filming the event. He wants to be in the movies and so he stands in front of the camera and preens himself like a peacock. The bystander imagines that he can become a movie star simply by stepping in front of the camera. One can almost hear director Lehrman telling Chaplin, "You think it is so easy to become a movie star? You think you can just step in front of a camera and become a star? Do it. I dare you." Chaplin takes the dare and is absolutely hilarious as he drives the story director played by the real director Lehrman crazy.There is no story here. This is minimalist guerrilla cinema. Chaplin stands in front of the camera, Chaplin walks in front of the camera, Chaplin runs in front of the camera and Chaplin tosses his hat in front of the camera and retrieves it. This is not a plotted story, it is just the camera finding, discovering and falling in love with Chaplin.Lehrman should get a great deal of credit for this movie as well as Chaplin. He allows his real anger at Chaplin to be displayed for all the world to see. The greatest joke is that we, the audience, don't understand that the anger is real, barely disguised in the spontaneous plot.Watching the behavior of the crowds, the kiddie race cars and the cameraman cranking the camera are bonus treat here. It just adds to fun of Chaplin boldly announcing his presence in the world of cinema.The last shot is a close-up of Chaplin making a funny face at the camera. It is a shocking close-up that rivals the last shot of "The Great Train Robbery." Instead of a gun going off, we have Chaplin making a funny face a few inches from the camera lens and having his nose squeezed. It is a great shot that only lasts a moment, but leaves us wanting more.This is not so much a film as a record of the descent of the Great God Pan to Earth. No funnier or happier footage has been shot in the 100 years since.

MartinHafer In 1914, Charlie Chaplin began making pictures. These were made for Mack Sennett (also known as "Keystone Studios") and were literally churned out in very rapid succession. The short comedies had very little structure and were completely ad libbed. As a result, the films, though popular in their day, were just awful by today's standards. Many of them bear a strong similarity to home movies featuring obnoxious relatives mugging for the camera. Many others show the characters wander in front of the camera and do pretty much nothing. And, regardless of the outcome, Keystone sent them straight to theaters. My assumption is that all movies at this time must have been pretty bad, as the Keystone films with Chaplin were very successful.The Charlie Chaplin we know and love today only began to evolve later in Chaplin's career with Keystone. By 1915, he signed a new lucrative contract with Essenay Studios and the films improved dramatically with Chaplin as director. However, at times these films were still very rough and not especially memorable. No, Chaplin as the cute Little Tramp was still evolving. In 1916, when he switched to Mutual Studios, his films once again improved and he became the more recognizable nice guy--in many of the previous films he was just a jerk (either getting drunk a lot, beating up women, provoking fights with innocent people, etc.). The final evolution of his Little Tramp to classic status occurred in the 1920s as a result of his full-length films.Once again, in this short, there isn't much plot. No wait,...there's zero plot. The Keystone crew went on location (as they often did) to a kids racing event (kind of like a soapbox derby) and told Chaplin to just wander on and off the track again and again for the entire film. Apart from that, he did nothing except getting punched a few times for getting in the way. There is no coherence to this piece and it's only important for historical reasons--especially since this was the first time on film Chaplin dressed as the Little Tramp.