Modern Times (1936) says goodbye to The Little Tramp
and hello to a brave new world. Charlie Chaplin takes aim at the horrors of
industrialism and the tribulations of the Great Depression, and yet he brings along a nostalgic zest for the earlier
twentieth century that is not going gently into that good night. Inevitably, he presents us with a Valentine.
Continuing our look this year at films from the 1930s that
make a social commentary on that decade, as I’ve mentioned before, many filmmakers
in this era chose to deliberately comment on social conditions in that
challenging time and make “modern times” the backdrop of even silly
comedies. You didn’t have to look far to
see a message. We turn now to a giant (a little giant
maybe, but still a giant) in the history of film who does just this, and uses it
to give his most famous and beloved character not just a curtain call, but a
socially relevant one.
Mr. Chaplin came to realize that The Little Tramp’s era of particular
innocence was over, and practically speaking, there was no way to continue his
adventures not speaking.
Therefore, this is the last “silent film” made featuring our hapless
hero. However, it is also the first film
we hear Chaplin’s voice—later in the movie when he sings a silly song.
The film is mostly silent, with some sound effects and very
little dialogue—mostly from the boss of the factory who bellows at his employees
via a large television-type screen. This
is not your father’s industrial revolution; in fact, the factory where Chaplin
works is almost Buck Rogers futuristic, an Art Deco version of a factory. It is the 1930s, after all.
The movie starts with a stark title screen and a rather film
noir-ish musical theme, threatening and foreboding. We see the image of a flock of sheep, and
then the image of men climbing subway steps in a herd, running to the factory,
to suggest that they are sheep. The
title card tells us this is “A story of industry, of individual enterprise—humanity
crusading in the pursuit of happiness.”
Will humanity succeed in finding happiness? Maybe only at times.
It doesn’t start well for The Little Tramp and quickly goes
downhill from there. We see him
tightening nuts on an assembly line, having trouble keeping up. The bellowing owner from his omniscient screen
observes them and wants more speed. He
is played by Al Ernest Garcia.
Charlie takes a smoke break in the washroom, but he gets
yelled at by the face on the screen even in there. Big Brother is even in the bathroom.
Efficiency experts come to the factory to demonstrate a new
machine that will make the workers eat lunch faster—and poor Charlie is chosen
to demonstrate. Strapped into a chair, a
revolving, demonic lazy Susan is placed before him, and he is force-fed soup,
corn on the cob, and gets the traditional slapstick pie in the face from a
mechanical arm, while his face is blotted intermittently with a large office
blotter. It’s a funny skit, and levity
helps us—if not Charlie—from going crazy at the imprisonment of his
workplace.
When Charlie is on a break or off the line, he continues to
twitch with the motion of tightening nuts with two large wrenches. Poor Charlie goes berserk from the stress,
ends up being threaded through the giant cogs of a machine in the iconic
scene. Afterwards, he takes his large
wrenches and attempts to tighten anything—including the large dress buttons
strategically placed on the breasts of a passing woman. This is one of those gags that’s more funny
if we are led right up to the moment and then is suddenly cut off, because what
we imagine could happen is always funnier.
Playfully and maniacally out of control, Charlie is chased
by his co-workers, taken to a hospital, and later, cured of a nervous
breakdown, and must start his life over.
He is constantly starting over from square one in this
movie, and that, too, is a comment on the modern condition. We must be prepared to start over. Always.
In another funny mistake, he falls into a manhole and comes
up with a red warning flag, such that construction workers would take on a job,
and when he emerges from the manhole with the flag, just at that moment, a
protest march by a communist workers’ group is going by and he gets swept up
with them. He is rounded up and taken to
the police station.
Meanwhile, Paulette Goddard plays a poor girl living in a
shack by the waterfront with her widowed father and two kid sisters. She is The Gamin. Dad is out of work, heavily burdened by the
Depression, and Paulette, with a scrappy survivor’s instinct, steals bananas to
feed the family. Reportedly, one of her
little sisters was played by Gloria DeHaven at 10 or 11 years old in her first role.
Charlie is sent to prison, and when cocaine is smuggled to
another prisoner via a salt shaker, referred to on our helpful title card as “nose
powder,” Charlie inadvertently douses his food with it. His wide-eyed reaction tells us he is
high. One wonders how that got by the
Production Code. Helpless to control
himself, he accidentally foils a plot by revolting prisoners to overtake the
guards, and he is rewarded with release.
He doesn’t really want to leave, though.
He is cozy in his cell, with no responsibilities and three squares a
day. It’s a good setup for a guy like
Charlie, who loses every job he gets.
When he is freed, he is told, “Now make good.”
The Gamin, meanwhile, gets into trouble when her poor father
is shot to death. The authorities step
in and take the two younger girls, but Paulette escapes. She finally crosses paths with Charlie when
he gets fired from a shipbuilding company on the waterfront where she lives,
and he accidentally launches a half-built ship. She has stolen bread and runs
smack into him. Gentleman that he is,
and out of work besides, he allows himself to be arrested and carted off to the
hoosegow once again. He offers his seat
to Paulette in the police van and helps her to escape. Even eating a big meal in a restaurant
without the money to pay for it won’t keep him in jail for long, but when he
meets Paulette, Charlie decides it’s better to stay out of jail, and he vows he
will get a home for them both, “even if I have to work for it.”
They are two lost souls battling the storms of life, but The
Little Tramp is a man-child, and their relationship is as playful as brother
and sister.
He takes a job as a night watchman in a department
store. Again, as we’ve seen in this previous post on Employees' Entrance (1933), the multi-story downtown department store has a
special place in the Great Depression.
It is the cathedral of commerce, with the promise of good times coming
again, despite most people not having enough money to do more than window-shop.
Charlie provides a place for Paulette to sleep on home
furnishings floor, and while she luxuriates in a comfortable floor model bed,
he runs into a former co-worker from the factory that has now been shut
down. He is Big Bill, played by Stanley “Tiny”
Sandford, and he is going to rob the store.
One of his accomplices explains, “We ain’t burglars—we’re hungry.”
It ends, of course, with Charlie taken off to
jail again, but before that we have that stunning scene where he tries out
roller skates and nearly plumets to his death on a floor where renovation
construction is not finished and he comes very close to falling several stories
while cutting a caper with fancy skating moves.
Classic film fans may know this is just a very clever matte shot, and
Chaplin was not in danger doing the stunt, but it looks terrific.
When Charlie is released from jail this time, Paulette
faithfully waits for him, and provides a tumbledown shack for their home, and
she has returned to stealing food.
The factory where he worked at the beginning of the movie is
reopening and he hopes to get a real home for them. He is assigned as an assistant to a mechanic,
played by Chester Conklin. This time, Chester
gets caught in the cogs and Charlie’s not much help. Paulette, Charlie, and Chester would all
reunite in The Great Dictator (1940).
Believe it or not, he has another stay in jail, while
Paulette gets a job as a dancer in a café, and she gets him a job as a singing
waiter there when he’s out of the lockup.
Here’s where we get to finally hear Charlie Chaplin’s voice. He cannot remember the words to the song he’s
supposed to sing, so he makes up gibberish and we see him dashing about the dancefloor,
twisting himself into a frenetic ballet, and singing a song Chaplin wrote
called, “Je cherche après titine,” which is a mixture of
French and Italian that he roguishly performs as a supposedly risqué song. Have a look here.
But wouldn’t you know, life comes down hard again, and the
authorities who have been looking for Paulette all this time have
returned. She and Charlie escape, but scrappy
Paulette has finally run out of courage.
They stand on the dusty open road that stretches out miles ahead of
them. Is it promising, or is it
bleak? Perhaps it’s just a matter of
viewpoint.
“What’s the use of trying?” she says in tears.
He answers, “Buck up—never say die. We’ll get along!” It is the theme of the Great Depression for
those who survived it. I can remember
many years ago watching a documentary series on the Great Depression with my
father, who was a teenager during those years, and who joined the Civilian
Conservation Corps to help send money back to support his widowed mother and kid
sisters. At the time, it was an
adventure. Bad times were shrugged off because
if they weren’t, you were done for just by giving up. But as an old man, looking back, with perhaps
less courage than he had when he was a teen, and having acquired a great deal
more knowledge about life in the meantime, he muttered, stony-faced at the
TV: “My God, it’s a wonder we ever
survived it.”
In the background, while Charlie is comforting Paulette, we
hear the music he wrote, which would later gain lyrics and the title “Smile.” The first to record it supposedly was Nat
King Cole, many years later. You can listen to it here.
There was no single anthem of that generation, but this quiet,
hopeful song may have been one of them.
It was a perfect way, as Charlie and Paulette gather their
things and walk down the road together to meet head-on whatever happens next, for
The Little Tramp to leave us. I like to
think he’s still down the road somewhere, shrugging off mishaps.
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From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books. From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation.
