Charlie Chaplin's sentimental but keenly satirical swipe at the mechanization of everyday life is by consensus the last of the great silent features. Talkies were predominant in Hollywood as early as 1929, but this 1936 film reflects (and thematizes) Chaplin's resistance to change--though
we do hear his voice for the first time during a nonsense song.
As with most Chaplin, MODERN TIMES proceeds as a loosely linked series of comic and/or melodramatic setpieces. (One critic of the time complained that the film is really a quartet of two-reelers strung together: "The Shop," "The Jailbird," "The Watchman," and "The Singing Waiter.") The film
follows Chaplin's famil...
Released:
1936
Rated:
NR
Length:
85 mins