Modern Times is Charlie Chaplin's last film featuring his famous "Tramp" character. The DVD sleeve that came from Netflix also stated that this film is Chaplin's last "silent" movie (with the quotation marks). The quotation marks are there because the movie isn't exactly silent; it has sound effects, music, and even some spoken dialogue. Apparently, Chaplin wasn't sure that the Tramp would succeed as a speaking character, so he made Modern Times in the style of a silent movie, even though the silent era was pretty well dead by 1936.
Chaplin's voice does appear in the film, however, towards the end. After proving pretty useless at numerous jobs throughout the film, it appears that the Tramp is about to screw up another one; he's been hired as a singing waiter, though we suspect he can neither sing nor wait. He can't memorize the words to his song, so he has them written on his shirt cuffs. But as soon as he comes out and does a couple dance moves, the cuffs go flying from his wrists, taking the lyrics with them. What follows is an amazing and entertaining routine, in which Chaplin sings his own foreign-sounding lyrics (which are in fact utter gibberish) to the tune "Je cherche aprè Titine" by Léo Daniderff.
That scene alone made this movie worthwhile for me. It's perhaps hard to appreciate out of context; the entire movie leading up to that scene has built up the expectation that the Tramp is going to screw up this job somehow, but instead he succeeds spectacularly.
Since I'm not really a big fan of silent movies, nor am I a big fan of physical comedy, I didn't expect to enjoy watching Modern Times. But I really did enjoy it. I guess I like Chaplin better than the Marx Brothers. There's something timeless and relevant about the plot; an unemployed man looks for work, meets a girl, and they try to survive together. It's not sappy, even though it's comedy. The girl is played by Paulette Goddard, and she's actually kind of cute. Her character is a devilish gamin (a new word to me, which basically means a street urchin), perpetually stealing food and getting into trouble for it. Chaplin is funny, but the two of them together are brilliant.
The film feels long, at only 87 minutes, because the scenes are so short, and by the end of the movie we've seen Chaplin as a factory worker who has a nervous breakdown, gets fired, gets mistaken as a communist leader, gets arrested, does cocaine in jail, helps foil a jailbreak, gets pardoned by the sheriff, works as a shipbuilder, gets fired, works as a department-store night-watchman, gets fired, works as a mechanic's assitant, gets fired, gets mistaken as a rioter, gets arrested, etc. etc. etc. Somewhere along the way he befriends the gamin and they fall in love. They share a shack together (though Chaplin modestly sleeps separately, in the woodshed), and she makes him ham sandwiches on the thickest slices of bread I've ever seen.
I don't watch a lot of silent movies, and I think this might be the first Chaplin movie I've ever seen. I have a suspicion that it's probably his best, and although I really enjoyed it I'm not sure I'm going to rush off to see any other of his films. I'm sure I'll see them eventually, though, and based on my experience with Modern Times, I'll probably enjoy watching the others too.
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