Charlie Chaplin — The tramp is a champ

There's a famous moment in "The Kid" that occurs when social workers come to take the 6-year-old title character to an orphanage. He is torn from the arms of the Little Tramp, who has raised him from infancy, and while the Tramp is restrained, the boy is placed in the bed of an old pickup truck. There, he stands, with his arms outstretched, and cries and screams for his "father."

The child's torment is heartrending, arguably one of the most emotional moments in all of film history. And it continues when the Little Tramp breaks away, climbs up through a skylight and leaps over rooftops as he follows the truck, eventually jumping into its bed and taking the lad back into his arms.

Anyone who can sit through that sequence without, at the very least, wiping away a tear, needs a heart transplant.

To modern audiences, especially younger audiences, that may seem incredible. What makes it all the more remarkable in a contemporary context is that the film is silent. It does all this without words.

But there is little argument that writer/director Charlie Chaplin was at the peak of his form in the '20s and '30s, and that "The Kid," along with "City Lights," marked the pinnacle of a very strong film career.

Both films are included — along with four other features and seven shorts — in the new DVD set released this week, "The Chaplin Collection, Volume Two" (Warner, not rated, b/w and color, $99.92, 12 discs). In addition, the set includes a documentary on Chaplin's life and films, and, as with "Volume One," there is a mother lode of bonus materials, including introductions, featurettes, deleted scenes, newsreels, home movies, photo galleries and much more.

Here is a rundown of the double-disc sets:

"The Kid" (1921) is a great film, loaded with laughs and just as much honest sentiment. The boy is played by 6-year-old Jackie Coogan, who is amazing in this film, an incredible actor (or mimic, under Chaplin's direction), with a wonderfully engaging screen persona.

"The Circus" (1928) is often disdained by critics as "just a comedy," but what's wrong with that. The Little Tramp joins the circus and there are many hilarious sequences.

"City Lights" (1931) is a fabulous masterpiece that successfully blends slapstick and sentiment, as the Little Tramp tries to earn money to help a blind flower girl regain her sight. Justly hailed as one of the best films of all time, and its final scene as one of the best moments in all of movies. (Chaplin filmed it silent, despite the entrance of sound in movies some four years earlier.)