#543: CHAPLIN, Charles: Modern Times (1936)

CHAPLIN, Charles (United States)

Modern Times [1936]

Spine #543
DVD

Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin's last outing as the Little Tramp, puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who becomes smitten with a gorgeous gamine (Paulette Goddard). With its barrage of unforgettable gags and sly commentary on class struggle during the Great Depression, Modern Times — though made almost a decade into the talkie era and containing moments of sound (even song!) — is a timeless showcase of Chaplin's untouchable genius as a director of silent comedy.

87 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2010

Director/Writer

Charles Chaplin was 47 when he wrote and directed Modern Times.

Other Chaplin films in the Collection:

#799: The Kid (1921)

#1253: A Woman of Paris (1923)
#996: The Circus (1928/1969)
#680: City Lights (1931)
#565: The Great Dictator (1940)
#615: The Gold Rush (1925/1942)
#652: Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
#756: Limelight (1952)

The Film

Chaplin certainly considered making this film a talkie — he even had the studio set enclosed and made tests — but ultimately decided that he simply couldn’t put dialogue in the mouth of the Tramp, although he would sing a silly song (see below) …

There are, however, several characters who speak dialogue, and plenty of meticulously executed sound effects …

So much good stuff:

• The opening title card:
• “‘Modern Times.’ A story of industry, of individual enterprise — humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness”;
• A herd of sheep dissolving to men pouring out of the subway;
• Four establishing cuts of the factory (including undetectable hanging minatures!), leading up to the turbine operator (Sam Stein);
• Chaplin is certainly paying homage to the factory from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927):
• The president of Electro Steel Corp. (Allan Garcia) doing a jigsaw puzzle, reading the funny paper;
• The assembly line, with the Tramp on the line, tightening bolts (this is such a well-known scene);
• His hands are automatically seeking out anything that needs tightening — including (later), the buttons on the secretary’s dress;
• The Billows Feeding Machine (J. Widdecombe Billows: Murdock McQuarrie) — long section of narration here;
• “Don’t stop for lunch! Be ahead of your competitor!”;
• The Tramp is enlisted to demonstrate the machine’s capabilities. It fails to impress the president;
• Title card: “Cured of a nervous breakdown but without a job, he leaves the hospital to start life anew”;
• In January 1927, Chaplin suffered a nervous breakdown during the time of his rancorous divorce from his second wife, Lita Grey;
• We are introduced to the “gamine” (Paulette Goddard) — stealing bananas for her hungry family;
• Perhaps one of the first cocaine jokes in cinema? Title card: “Searching for smuggled ‘nose-powder’”
• Chaplin sitting with the minister’s wife (Myra McKinney), jokes about digestion (with appropriate sound effects;
• Sheriff Couler (Ed Le Sainte) gives the Tramp a letter of recommendation for work. He gets a job at a shipyard, where he accidentally launches a half-built ship into the sea when he removes a wooden wedge (beautiful rear projection shot!);
• The gamine steals a loaf of bread; the Tramp tries to save her from arrest by taking credit for the theft; he is let go, but gets himself re-arrested by ordering a huge meal and cigars and not paying for them;
• Another job opportunity — night watchman at a department store. Here we get the pleasure of watching Chaplin roller skate. He was a superb at it!
• Notice the matte painting inserted so perfectly as to instill in the viewer the possibility of Chaplin falling over the edge!
• Note the gorgeous vertical wipe (top to bottom) at 0:53:27!
• The gamine finds them a ramshackle cabin to live in;
• Back to the factory. (This might be the weakest part of the film … the gags are basically repeating themselves by now);
• The gamine lands a job dancing at a club (proprietor, the great Henry Bergman); the Tramp is a waiter. Lots of business with having to deliver the food on a tray (look carefully! There is a thinly disguised handle on the bottom of the tray!) … of course, he makes a mess of it all, and the proprietor — exasperated — asks him if he can sing?
• Of course he can, but he can’t remember the lyrics. The gamine writes them on the cuff of his shirt, which he promptly loses;
• We hear the Tramp’s voice for the first and last time, as he is forced to improvise a silly song with nonsense lyrics:

Se Bella ciu satore

Je notre so cafore

Je notre si cavore

Je la tu, la ti, la tua

La spinash o la busho

Cigaretto porta bello

Ce rakish spagaletto

Je la tu, la ti, la tua

Senora Pilasina

Voulez-vous le taximeter

…

Le zionta sous la sita

Tu la tu, la tu, la wa

Se muntya si la moora

La sontya so gravora

La zontya [kiss]

Comme sora

Je la poose a ti la tua

Je notre so la mina

Je notre so cosina

Je le se tro savita

Je la tuss a vi la tua

Se motra so la sonta

Ci vossa la travonta

Les zosha si katonta

[kiss]

Tra la la la, tra la la

Chaplin’s song Smile permeates the soundtrack from here on. Purely instrumental, the lyrics were not written until 1954!

Smile, though your heart is aching

Smile, even though it’s breaking

When there are clouds in the sky

You’ll get by

If you smile through your fear and sorrow

Smile and maybe tomorrow

You’ll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness

Hide every trace of sadness

Although a tear may be ever so near

That’s the time you must keep on trying

Smile what’s the use of crying

You’ll find that life is still worthwhile

If you’ll just smile

Nat King Cole’s version

Michael Jackson’s version

Film Rating (0-60):

58

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Saul Austerlitz and a piece by film scholar Lisa Stein that includes excerpts from Chaplin’s writing about his 1930s world tour.

Austerlitz:

“Chaplin’s feature-length films are not merely extensions of his shorts; they are translations of his comic technique into a more flexible, emotive form. The shorts are brilliant, but they primarily document the brilliance of the performer; the features allow Chaplin to vary the emotional palette of his work and to engage his skill as a filmmaker. The shorts had made Chaplin a star, but the features made him an artist. The Tramp is no longer just a miraculously energetic scamp but also a fragile soul wounded by a cruel, uncaring world. Chaplin features like The Kid (1921) [Spine #799], The Gold Rush (1925) [Spine #615], and City Lights (1931) [Spine #680] are hardly less astonishingly amusing than his shorts, but they add a dimension of feeling heretofore lacking in his work. Chaplin was adamant that the Tramp would never speak, and given the indubitable genius of his performances in The Gold Rush and City Lights, one sees his point. Modern Times would be the Tramp’s last run. ”

Stein:

“Chaplin’s experience with Gandhi was followed by an impromptu departure for the provinces of northern England, places he had not visited since his days in English music halls (1909-1913) — for, as he wrote, he had ‘heard rumors concerning the destitute conditions there.’ In Blackburn, he stood in the city square and listened to political speeches, some for the Social Credit reform movement — based on the ideas of the English engineer and economist Clifford Hugh Douglas, who linked low wages and unemployment with the fact that the power of the market was in the hands of an elite few — and some for communism.”

Commentary

Fantastic and informative commentary by Chaplin biographer David Robinson.

“The ‘feeding machine was to figure marginally in a very unpleasant plagiarism case which was brought against Modern Times and was to nag on for more than a decade without ever coming to trial. The Franco-German production firm Tobis claimed that the film plagiarized René Clair’s 1931 film Á Nous la liberté (Spine #160). The elements that they claimed Chaplin had stolen were ‘bondage of the factory; apparent idleness of the chief; the constant watch in the prison, in the factory, in private life; the departure on the road at random’ …  ”

Clair — who worshipped Chaplin — responded:

“Chaplin is too great a man, and I admire him too much to admit that his creation genius should be contested in any way. I, myself, owe him very much. And besides, if he has borrowed a few ideas from me, he has done me a great honor.”

Regarding the nonsense song:

“The tune of the song was actually a French comic song called ‘Je cherche après Titine,’ composed by Léo Daniderff in 1917. It concerned a lost dog, who had evidently gone off in search of romance. It was translated into English under the title ‘Titina,’ and was performed by Elsie Janis in a New York revue called ‘Puzzles of 1925’”

Video essays

By Chaplin historian and Jeffrey Vance.

Modern Times: A Closer Look

Great photographic essay — all stills — including the unused scene of Goddard as a nun.

Program

A Bucket of Water and a Glass Matte:

Special Effects in Modern Times

On the film’s visual and sound effects, with experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt.

Glass matte effect shot roller skating scene 

Interview

From 1992 with Modern Times music arranger David Raskin, plus a selection from the film’s original orchestral track.

Two segments

Cut from the film.

1) Charlie can’t seem to cross the street.

2) The Tramp’s song — more or less the same as the scene in the film …

All at Sea

A home movie by Alistair Cooke featuring Chaplin and actress Goddard, with a new score by Donald Sosin and a new interview with Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge.

The Rink

A Chaplin two-reeler from 1916.

A delicious extra!

For the First Time

A short Cuban documentary about first-time moviegoers seeing Modern Times.

Chaplin Today: “Modern Times”

A program with filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

Three theatrical trailers

U.S. / France / Germany

Extras Rating (0-40):

37

58 + 37 =

95

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