Modern Times (1936)

Charlie Chaplin was best known for his "little tramp" character with the bowler hat, cane, loose pants, tight coat, big floppy shoes, and toothbrush mustache. He made lots of silent pictures all through the teens and twenties starting with Mack Sennett and working for various studios during the time. In 1919 he formed United Artists with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and DW Griffith as a means of freeing themselves from the stranglehold the studios placed on their performers and the monopoly they had on the distribution of movies. United Artists distributed films and made it possible for independent filmmakers to work outside the studio system.

Modern Times was made in 1936, far into the talkie era, yet Chaplin was not ready to commit to sound, actually using sound to spoof his audience. The only sounds come from electric devices but all the rest of the action is silent with Chaplin and costars miming the dialogue; that is, until the final scene where Chaplin sings a song using nonsense syllables, apparently to give his opinion on the necessity for movies to have dialogue.

Modern Times is episodic, with several striking segments and others that are not as innovative or interesting. The movie opens with Chaplin in an ultra modern factory working on an assembly line with a wrench in each hand tightening nuts as the parts whiz by on a conveyor that keeps getting sped up by the boss, who reads comic strips and works puzzles when he is not watching his workers and communicating with them through a sophisticated surveillance system. The set is a fantastic machine with all sorts of exposed gears and workings that make the individuals seem very insignificant.

Chaplin is selected to test a new labor saving device, a machine that feeds the worker in place to eliminate the need for lunch hours. The device is very intimidating with stations that rotate and shovel the various foods into the person's mouth. Of course it goes haywire and the result is a great slapstick moment with Chaplin's teeth shearing corn off a cob like a lathe and other ingenious gags. After this, he goes crazy with the bolt tightening and tries to tighten the decorative buttons on women's posteriors and busts. He gets sucked into the machine and threaded through the sprockets like a camera. When they back him out of the machine he is dancing around tightening more stuff until they take him to the mental hospital.

When Chaplin is "cured," he assumes the guise of the "little tramp", his familiar character with the hat and cane. As he walks through the urban landscape, a red flag falls off a lumber truck. Chaplin picks it up and finds himself as leader of a red parade. He is arrested and mistakenly eats cocaine instead of salt. He accidentally foils a jailbreak by knocking out the rioters and is released as a hero. A parallel story thread has detailed the tough life of Paulette Goddard, a young homeless girl introduced as "a gamin," apparently an old fashioned word for "waif."

Since life is tough outside jail - the Depression - Chaplin tries to get locked up again, meets the gamin, etc. Chaplin and Goddard try to get together but he gets locked up again, she is underage and gets arrested by juvenile authorities, etc. The grand finale shows Chaplin as a singing waiter singing the nonsense song. And the two walk off into the sunset together.

Chaplin is a great mime and is able to communicate just through his gestures. Paulette Goddard is strikingly pretty and that pretty smile carries her through a part that mainly requires her to look good.

The movie certainly is a whack against the depersonalized industrial society. I think it's well done but it has been done many times and is not unique. The parts with the elaborate mechanized sets are the most striking.

Modern Times is available on Warner Bros DVD. The 83 minute feature has been restored and the score is by Charlie Chaplin – I found it a bit overbearing and bombastic, but you may like it. The movie is worth seeing, and I'm no expert on Chaplin but Modern Times is supposed to be as good as it gets. There is an extra disk with mucho bonus material that gives the behind the scenes story of the movie.

Also recommended, silent great Buster Keaton in The General.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening