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| Trying to mechanize lunch for increased efficiency. |
Gamine girl: What's the use of trying?
The Tramp: Buck up -never say die. We'll get along.
In Modern Times, a mostly silent movie, Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character is suffering through the depression, and getting into mischief.
He works in a factory for the first half hour of the movie, and it's pretty much like watching an episode of Looney Tunes for much of this portion.
The mechanized monotony of the work (and an all-seeing boss who watches everything through cameras and is trying to elliminate breaks) drives him nuts, and he is fired after chasing a lady down the street trying to tighten the bolt-looking buttons on the chest of her dress (kinda kinky, actually).
A series of unfortunate events lands him in jail, which actually turns out to be pretty good, because he gets free food and board, instead of living on the streets, starving and unemployed. In fact, once he's released, he tries to get put back in jail. There's no work, so jail seems like a pretty sweet option.
Paulette Goddard (Chaplin's real-life love for a time) plays a penniless orphan girl (they call her a gamine girl) who latches on to Chaplin. They dream of living in a dream home together, and she finds a shack for them to stay in, and fixes it up as best she can. He goes through a series of jobs, but is the worst worker ever, and never lasts more than a day because of his shenanigans and general ineptitude. In the end, Goddard is discouraged when they lose their jobs at a cafe, but Chaplin tells her not to get disheartened, and they walk off together cheerfully.
Tyler described the comedy as like the Marx Brothers but with only Harpo (no Chico or Groucho). Some of it's very slapstick, but it could be pretty funny. There's one particular scene that really made me laugh, where he's working with a crew building a ship, and he accidentally removes the wedge keeping it on land, and it slides out to sea and sinks. The looks on the faces of the workers is pretty priceless as they watch it slip away.
The movie also fared pretty well with the one-year-old demographic, as my youngest daughter seemed to enjoy it.
And you've got to hand it to him, Chaplin is good at coming up with gags, and he is not afraid to look ridiculous for the sake of humor. He's very talented when it comes to physical comedy, and skilled at exploring social and political issues, with Modern Times exposing the bleak living conditions of working class citizens of the time through a comedic lens.
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