Modern Times (B&W)

Modern Times (B&W)
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
Customer Review: black and white classic
Modern times. I saw this because it was chosen as one of the best of the century. Charlie Chaplin had a sort of magic with film and it shows in this one.
Customer Review: A brilliant silent comedy
"Modern Times" is one of Charlie Chaplin's most memorable films. In this movie, the Tramp joins the ranks of the unemployed, and eventually teams up with a poor girl (Paulette Goddard) who's trying to make her way in the world. Like all Chaplin films, "Modern Times" features numerous slapstick routines that are just as funny today as they were 80 years ago when this film was made. This is one of the first Chaplin films that uses recorded sound effects and even some spoken dialogue in the form of a nonsense song, which was Chaplin's way of lashing out at talking motion pictures. Chaplin also composed the score to this movie, which includes "Smile," one of Chaplin's most famous songs. This is a truly fantastic film that people will continue to enjoy for many years to come.