The Worst Film Ever

Simply Perfect

Excellent but underrated film

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I've often heard the name Charles Lane spoken as the great new independent director, an artist to rival the best of the golden age, and I am shocked to find that he has only made two feature length films. "Sidewalk Stories" alone is enough to place him among the great creative legends who turned pathos into art and gave the audience his heart in return. Here, he plays a gentle homeless man, making few dollars a day with his sketches, then sneaking into an abandoned park structure at night to sleep. Lane has an angel like presence as his sweet natured character is often used and abused, taken advantage of, and ultimately pretty much sacrifices everything for a little girl. There's a combination of Chaplin and a modern street tough sensibility in this film as Lane (combination writer, director and star) makes this identifiable to modern audiences as well as touching the hearts of classic cinema fans still craving the Charlie Chaplin like sentimentality.The best moments are often the smallest, including a scene where Lane must shoplift to get some clean clothes for his little charge. The big hearted store owner is amused and touched by his obvious affection, and in turn takes surprisingly heartfelt steps. It's not ripping off "The Kid", but giving a modern twist on it that hopefully inspires young artists to look back at the classics that made film what it is today. Filming it silent (except for a fitting musical score) and black and white makes it all the more touching. A scene in a park further down Sixth Avenue shows Lane dealing with some uppity white women in a most amusing manner. A brief gratuitous bit of sex seems out of place, but it's simply another effort to modernize what Chaplin couldn't get away with in the 1920's and 30's. Don't confuse all of Lane's roles in this as Ed Wood like ego in being another Chaplin or Orson Welles. If he didn't have the chops, he would not have been so successful at getting this done as well as it was. The West Village 6th Avenue location shoot (just around the corner from Washington Square) is ironic for me, having seen a double bill of Chaplin nearby at the film forum where this has been re-screened with Mr. Lane present, making this now a modern cult classic. Nicole Alysia (Lane's real daughter) adds to the charm of this film, so adorable and sweet as the little girl who comes to depend on him.

It takes a lot of nerve to update a classic silent comedy, and do it again as a silent film, but that's the idea behind this Reagan-era remake of the 1921 Chaplin comedy 'The Kid'. Writer/producer/director Charles Lane himself takes the Little Tramp role, playing a homeless New York City street artist who reluctantly adopts an abandoned toddler (in real life Lane's own daughter). Both have big shoes to fill, Lane most of all because, unlike Chaplin, he isn't exactly a creative genius, and his attempts at visual comedy are never more than mildly amusing, at best.But silence is golden, and more to the point for a struggling independent filmmaker, it can be economical as well. By muting the voices on screen Lane succeeds in muting the harsh impact of poverty, bringing some charm to what could have been a merely depressing backdrop. So why introduce the panhandler's begging voices in the final scene, when their faces alone would have been eloquent enough? It amounts to thematic overkill in an otherwise engaging novelty (if not much else), with a likable underdog as its director and star.

Our protagonist is resourceful, tenderhearted, homeless. He finds himself with a baby, someone else's, and suddenly his life shifts focus. The child, thankfully, does not redeem the main character whose actions are a natural extension of who he is-a nameless person. Without home and name doesn't mean without personality, and a life, and the instinct for survival. The main character suddenly has to be concerned for someone other than himself, and this is the charm of the film, charm without sentimentality.This is an intriguing contrast of the humorous set against the plight of the homeless in NYC; it works, partly because it is so outrageous and comic in its implementation-e.g. the conflict with the other street artist, the use of the bathtub. A gentle, good film whose final moments still resonate in the mind, not because of their greatness, but because of the unexpected but successful shift in focus and technique. It achieves. Charles Lane as writer, director, and main character has done a very fine job in three areas, none suffering because of the others.

Lane's Sidewalk Stories is a unique homage to Chaplin, with a social message dealing with the stereotype of the homeless. Lane uses the character of the Tramp for comedy but also as a literal representation of a homeless man without being overly sentimental or heavy handed.