Movie Review Modern Times

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1936 – Spoiler alerts Though made ten years into the era of the talkies, this classic Charlie Chaplin movie uses a little dialogue and an improvised closing song, though it remains predominantly silent. Chaplin is working in a high tech assembly-line production plant, on a fast moving conveyer belt applying nuts to some machine parts but the increasing speed of the machinery is too much for him, and he is pushed to a nervous breakdown. The factory has other problems too. The boss has cameras watching the men’s rest rooms to watch for those skiving off work. Use of the rest facilities involves clocking off so as not to be paid for unproductive time. The company also tries out a machine that thy hope will feed the workers while on duty, to save on lunch breaks, though even they see the apparatus as impractical. Due to his breakdown, Chaplin is fired and later falsely arrested in mistake for a Communist agitator. In prison, he accidentally swallows cocaine and later foils a break out attempt, which gains him a pardon. He doesn’t want one as he actually likes prison. Released, he meets Paulette Goddard as an orphaned woman who is being arrested for stealing bread at the height of the Depression. Chaplin gets himself arrested for it to nobly protect her. Released again, and living in a crumbling cottage with his girlfriend, Chaplin gets a job in a posh department store as a night security officer, but he is fired for letting his girlfriend and three destitute men enjoy use of the store in the night. After a disastrous return to the factory job Chaplin and his lady get work in a restaurant where they both find success as singers until her vagrancy status leads the cops to try arresting her. She and Chaplin hit the streets, with him now in his Little Tramp persona. She laments that they have nothing to keep going for but he is more optimistic as they walk off own an endless highway. At times this is a searing critique of rampant capitalism, and the lack of adequate welfare. At other times, Chaplin’s character comes across as utterly selfish. Learning the factory is reopening, he pushes through the queue of hopeful men to grab the last place and treats his work-mate with contempt. All in all, though a film that is as relevant today as it was in the 1930’s. The full movie can be seen on Youtube Arthur Chappell