Modern Times

Comedy, Romance

Charles Chaplin	A factory worker (as Charlie Chaplin)
Paulette Goddard	A gamin
Henry Bergman	Cafe proprietor
Tiny Sandford	Big Bill (as Stanley Sandford)
Chester Conklin	Mechanic
Hank Mann	Burglar
Stanley Blystone	Gamin's father
Al Ernest Garcia	President of the Electro Steel Corp. (as Allan Garcia)
Richard Alexander	Cellmate (as Dick Alexander)
Cecil Reynolds	Minister
Mira McKinney	Minister's wife (as Myra McKinney)
Murdock MacQuarrie	J. Widdecombe Billows (as Murdoch McQuarrie)
Wilfred Lucas	Juvenile officer
Edward LeSaint	Sheriff Couler (as Ed Le Sainte)
Fred Malatesta	Head waiter

Director	P.K. Radhakrishnan; Charles Chaplin
Producer	Charles Chaplin
Writer	Charles Chaplin

Modern Times marks the last proper appearance of Charles Chaplin's iconic Little Tramp, and finds our hero struggling to make ends meet in the Depression of the 1930s. Along the way he takes up with a juvenile delinquent (actually 24-year-old Paulette Goddard) and plays a prison incident with "nose powder" for drug-induced laughs--both plot elements seeming quite innocent here, though both would provoke controversy today. Modern Times' most famous sequences portray the dehumanisation of factory labour to fine comic effect, balancing satire with slapstick to perfection in several superbly executed set-pieces.

While the film has sound-effects and musical score, speech is only presented through mechanical means, via a gramophone, or through wall-sized TVs far more futuristic than in those in HG Wells' Things to Come (also 1936)--it's an interesting footnote that the comic and the SF visionary were friends. Chaplin famously not being a fan of sound cinema acknowledges the need to move with the times, yet hilariously spoofs the exploitation of man and machine while doing so. Amid some great laughs, the political message comes though clearly: the boss is making a fortune while doing jigsaw puzzles in his luxury office, the workers are toiling ever harder on the production line for their pittance.

On the DVD: Modern Times is offered in the original 4:3 black and white with good mono sound evidencing just a little distortion and a very clean, clear picture with minimal grain to give away its age. Also included are French and Italian dubbed versions and a pointless and ineffective English Dolby Digital 5.1 version of the soundtrack. The disc features multiple subtitle options, including English for hard of hearing.

Disc Two begins with a six-minute introduction by David Robinson. Next comes a very worthwhile 26-minute documentary by Philippe Truffault, Chaplin Today, centred around a perceptive subtitled discussion between French filmmakers Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne. There are three trailers, beautifully reproduced posters, an eight-part photo gallery and one entertaining deleted scene, as well as Chaplin's "nonsense song" from the film in isolated form and in a "Karaoke" version. The Documents section begins with a silent 42-minute 1931 documentary/propaganda film, In the Machine Age made by the US Dept of Labor. Along similar but more entertaining lines is Symphony in F a 1940 colour film combining music, manufacturing footage and animation celebrating the Ford motor company, while also included is a sequence from the Liberace Show (1956) with the star performing the vocal version of "Smile", the theme from Modern Times. Demonstrating the truly universal appeal of Chaplin is a 1967 short For the First Time, documenting what happens when the people of the remote Baracoa mountains in Cuba see their first ever movie, Modern Times. This is a remarkable collection which does a great film justice. --Gary S Dalkin