Modern Times Movie

Modern Times
Rating:
Run Time: 87 min
MPAA Rating: G
Released: 1936
Directors: Charles Chaplin
Genre/Type: Comedy
Satire
Urban Comedy
Producers: Charles Chaplin
Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
This episodic satire of the Machine Age is considered Charles Chaplin's last "silent" film, although Chaplin uses sound, vocal, and musical effects throughout. Chaplin stars as an assembly-line worker driven insane by the monotony of his job. After a long spell in an asylum, he searches for work, only to be mistakenly arrested as a Red agitator. Released after foiling a prison break, Chaplin makes the acquaintance of orphaned gamine (Paulette Goddard) and becomes her friend and protector. He takes on several new jobs for her benefit, but every job ends with a quick dismissal and yet another jail term. During one of his incarcerations, she is hired to dance at a nightclub and arranges for him to be hired there as a singing waiter. He proves an enormous success, but they are both forced to flee their jobs when the orphanage officials show up to claim the girl. Dispirited, she moans, "What's the use of trying?" But the ever-resourceful Chaplin tells her to never say die, and our last image is of Chaplin and The Gamine strolling down a California highway towards new adventures. The plotline of Modern Times is as loosely constructed as any of Chaplin's pre-1915 short subjects, permitting ample space for several of the comedian's most memorable routines: the "automated feeding machine," a nocturnal roller-skating episode, and Chaplin's double-talk song rendition in the nightclub sequence. In addition to producing, directing, writing, and starring in Modern Times, Chaplin also composed its theme song, Smile, which would later be adopted as Jerry Lewis' signature tune.

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Cast

Actors Character Born
Charles Chaplin Worker Apr 16, 1889 in London, England
Paulette Goddard Gamine Jun 3, 1910 in Great Neck, Long Island, NY
Henry Bergman Cafe Owner
Chester Conklin Mechanic Jan 11, 1888 in Oskaloosa, IA
Hank Mann Burglar
Louis Natheaux Burglar
Allan Garcia President of a Steel Corporation Mar 11, 1887 in San Francisco, CA
Frank Moran Convict Mar 18, 1887
Edward M. Kimball
Fred Malatesta Waiter Apr 18, 1889 in Naples, Italy
Murdock MacQuarrie J. Widdecombe Biddle Aug 26, 1878 in San Francisco, CA
Walter James Assembly Line Foreman Jun 3, 1882 in Chattanooga, TN
Dr. Cecil Reynolds Prison Chaplain
John Rand Convict Nov 19, 1871 in New Haven, CT
James C. Morton Assembly Worker
Sammy Stein Turbine Operator
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Back to the topReview

Review by Lucia Bozzola
Charles Chaplin's last "silent" film hilariously satirizes Depression-era social ills through the Tramp's disastrous encounters with the industrial age. Chaplin turns his factory worker's nervous breakdown into comic set pieces involving an automated feeding machine, an inability to stop tightening bolts, and, most famously, his entrapment in machinery gears. In a potent satire of authoritarian idiocy, Chaplin repeatedly ends up in jail for stumbling into worker riots and "Communist" protests, yet his ability to quell a prison break while accidentally hopped up on cocaine (!!) earns him the sheriff's respect. Paulette Goddard's fetching Gamin helps Chaplin find work as a singing waiter, but police intervention leaves their togetherness as their only hope. Accompanied by a Chaplin-composed score (including Smile) and synchronized sound effects, numerous bits of business showcase Chaplin's silent gift for physical comedy, including a department store roller skate and maneuvers with a food tray. In a send-up of talking pictures and technology's dehumanizing effects in general, the only voices heard in the movie (save for Chaplin's gibberish song and his fellow waiters' warbling) come from the factory's Orwellian telescreen P.A. system, a phonograph, and a radio. Three years in production, Modern Times became another international success for Chaplin (though it was banned in Germany and Italy) and one of the signature works of his career.
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