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The tagline which accompanied Modern Times during its original theatrical release reads:

“You'll never laugh as long and as loud again as long as you live! The laughs come so fast and so furious you'll wish it would end before you collapse!”

I wouldn’t go THAT far while describing this Charlie Chaplin vehicle. In fact the most accurate description I have heard to this day came from my father. About three-quarters into the movie, he blurted out:

“You get the feeling they made this stuff up as they went along?”

Modern Times is one outrageously wacky scenario after the other - and for a while it works. Chaplin’s extreme oafishness and goofy expressions are very appealing because he performs with superb grace. Every time he gets his head clocked by a piece of wood and every time he unknowingly dives into a shallow pool of water – it’s outstanding. Chaplin’s unusual choreography is ten times as meticulous as a Britney Spears number – and I’ve got to give it to Britney - she can dance. To use my dad’s quote, the fact that it looks like Chaplin and his equally impressive supporting players are making this stuff up as they go along, is even more of an accomplishment.

Chaplin plays The Tramp, a factory worker who is lucky to have a job during America’s Great Depression. And in this age of union strikes and riots, he’s lucky to keep that factory job as long as he does. Eventually though, The Tramp is overworked to a point of mental instability. He is fired and immediately sent to a mental institution. Shortly after a “cured” Tramp is released back to the real world where he quickly finds himself thrown in jail for leading a Communist riot (like most of the movie, The Tramp is completely innocent but finds himself smack-dab in the middle of chaos).

Time passes and The Tramp is liberated from prison life…to his chagrin. He loved living in his little cell with free food and friendly guards but, nevertheless, he is released. The Tramp is set on going to back to jail (for good) until he meets “a Gamin” played by Paulette Goddard. She’s homeless, depressed and starved – so The Tramp decides to end his quest for incarceration to make her life happier. With his clown-like skills and her dancing abilities, the two attempt to live happily ever after – which isn’t easy.

The aforementioned tagline may be a bit of an overstatement but Modern Times does have quite a few laughs. It’s not the funniest movie I have ever seen but it is consistently entertaining. The most hilarious and probably the most famous scene has The Tramp working so intensely on an assembly line, he eventually gets pulled into the machine and is sent head first into the elaborate gears and devices (no, I Love Lucky wasn’t the first attempt at the boundless comedic potential of the assembly line). The scene is a key example of Chaplin’s use of extraordinary set designs to further expand his gags.

Modern Times has several qualifications to gain my respect. It was a silent film three years after The Marx Brothers yapped it up in Duck Soup and nine years after Al Jolson made “talkie” history with The Jazz Singer. Yep, the title, Modern Times, is very ironic considering that the style of filmmaking was about as far from modern as you could get. Without talking, it is much easier to visually enjoy Chaplin’s assorted antics and gags, watching him roller-skating blindfolded on the edges of a steep hill might have been ruined if Goddard screamed “oh my!” throughout the entire sequence.

Chaplin does use a few moments of speech in his movie for specific purposes. The only characters that talk in the movie are a factory boss and a couple of machines. The significance of who talks and who doesn’t represents which areas had authority during that time period: the upper-class and technology. Modern Times has enough social commentary to fit a textbook. Do you think Chaplin meant to prove anything when The Tramp wasn’t driven insane from factory work and then didn’t want to leave prison?

Although the messages are powerful and well organized, the plot is somewhat sporadic. It seemed like whenever Chaplin and Co. would get tired of goofing off, they’d get back to the basics of story-telling. This rings true most for the finale which others have labeled as “poignant” or “classic.” The ending is so abrupt and so unexpected – I’m positive the filmmakers one day said “OK, this getting boring, can we wrap this up? ASAP?”

Modern Times runs a little too long at 87 minutes and it slowly becomes but steadily becomes repetitive as it progresses. I’m not going to rush and see it again but I can understand why it is a treasured American classic and why Chaplin is still loved by millions.

It’s slapstick with brains and fancy footwork.

It’s slapstick with brains...and fancy footwork.

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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=2344&reviewer=231
originally posted: 09/01/00 12:19:53
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