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Actors: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford, Chester Conklin, Hank Mann
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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Modern Times |
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More than a decade into the Sound era, Chaplin wrote and directed one last largely silent classic, released in 1936. "Modern Times" is partly an indictment of unthinking progress and mechanization. At first, Chaplin is a factory worker frantically trying to keep up tightening bolts on the production line. Selected to test a new automatic feeding machine, he is alternately fed and battered by the invention, and his boss becomes convinced he's gone mad and packs him off to the hospital. Once out, he picks up a red construction flag and is mistakenly jailed as a communist agitator. He foils a jailbreak and is released. Along with a pretty orphaned homeless girl (Goddard, "the gamin"), our hero tries unsuccessfully to hold a series of different jobs -- security guard in a department store, singing waiter -- all with hilarious results. There are some voices in this movie, all of which pointedly issue from mechanical devices, and toward the end Chaplin sings a song of entirely nonsense language. Not quite as consistent as "City Lights" or epic as "The Gold Rush," but a very entertaining and thought-provoking work nonetheless.
--David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of Modern Times |
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Comedy, primarily
Yes
Time/era of movie:
- 1930's-1950's
Kind of comedy
- adults acting eccentric
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- blue collar
Age:
- 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- brunette (Black)
Hair type
- (man) short/standard curly
Body type
- (man) average
Events of movie makes character more...
- happy
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor?
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Female
How much in movie?
- 60%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
Main Adversary
Identity:
- general circumstances
Setting
United States
Yes
City?
Yes
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- no torture/death
Movie makes you feel...
- full of laughter
Check here if B&W
Yes
Any profanity?
- None
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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