Modern
Times (1936)
Starring
Charlie Chaplin
Director
Charlie Chaplin
Plot Synopsis
This last Chaplin silent follows a victim of automation from a
hilariously dehumanizing assembly line to a mental institution, where he's much happier.
Film Notes
"Charlie Chaplin is in glorious form in this legendary
satire of the mechanized world. As a factory worker driven bonkers by the soulless
momentum of work, Chaplin executes a series of slapstick routines around machines,
including a memorable encounter with an automatic feeding apparatus. The pantomime is
triumphant, but Chaplin also draws a lively relationship between the Tramp and a street
gamine. She's played by Paulette Goddard, then Chaplin's wife and probably his best
leading lady (here and in The Great Dictator).
The film's theme gave the increasingly ambitious writer-director a chance to speak out
about social issues, as well as indulging in the bittersweet quality of pathos that
critics were already calling "Chaplinesque." In 1936, Chaplin was still holding
out against spoken dialogue in films, but he did use a synchronized soundtrack of sound
effects and his own music, a score that includes one of his most famous melodies, Smile.
And late in the film, Chaplin actually does speak - albeit in a garbled gibberish song, a
rebuke to modern times in talking pictures." (Robert Horton, Amazon.com)
Rated: NR