Modern Times

Though Modern Times was made in the mid 1930s, many of its themes and situations are just as relevant today as they were back then.  Men are still slaves to machines in more than just the workplace.  We strive to keep up with the latest, fastest technology, though these days our machines are much smaller.  And earning a living is still not easy to come by or easy to keep.  Much of the working class is still toiling and scraping by working to make the machines of industry turn.  

In the film, Charlie Chaplin plays a factory worker.  His job is to mindlessly tighten bolts on a conveyor belt assembly line.  The work is fast paced and makes for some great gags, some of the most memorable scenes in the film.  After the worker suffers a nervous breakdown and is released without a job, he accidentally gets in a union protest parade and arrested for being a communist leader.  His time in jail is peaceful and happy once he wins over the guards.  Being released back into society, with no job or home is tough and he tries to get back in jail.  But a young girl (Paulette Goddard) trying to make it on her own helps him make another try in these harsh modern times.

There is a wonderful daydream scene in the film that inspires the worker to get back to work when he and the girl are down on their luck.  He imagines owning a cozy little home with the girl.  There is comfy furniture, a big piece of meat in the skillet, ripe grapes to pick right out the door and a cow that walks up and automatically dispenses fresh milk. Everyone has their pie in the sky fantasies of the American dream, and this one is more sweet than outlandish.

My favorite scene in the film is testing out the feeding machine.  With the feeding machine, workers will not have to stop working to eat their lunch.  To keep up production, the machine will feed them, brilliant!  Our innocent Trampy worker is the guinea pig for the machine and can’t move as the machine pushes bites of food into his mouth and malfunctions splashing soup all over him.  When the rotating corn cob feeder goes haywire and spins against his face so hard it must have nearly rubbed off his iconic mustache, I laughed much more than I expected. The whole scene is hilarious and wonderful fun.

What Modern Times is to me is Chaplin’s commentary on where he thought the world was heading.  Henry Ford’s assembly line was still a new concept and the depression was leaving men desperate to do any work they could.  Tensions over unions made work even harder to find and less secure.  Too much industrialization was making men lose their individuality and become parts of the machines.  How wonderful that Chaplin didn’t have to say a word to convey that idea, he just needed an image of a man moving along the massive gears and still bent on tightening those nuts.  

“Hey you!  Get back to work!”

 

The Gold Rush

In 1925, Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush was one of the first feature films to star Chaplin in his Little Tramp role.  Before this time, The Tramp had been established and already well loved, but mostly in short films.  Here, Chaplin not only starred on screen, but he wrote, directed, edited and produced The Gold Rush.  Later when it was re-released in 1942, he also wrote the musical score and the narration.  It’s no wonder this is the film Chaplin hoped he would be most remembered for.

In The Gold Rush, The Little Tramp is in the Alaskan Klondike as The Lone Prospector.  Gold doesn’t seem to be the main concern during the harsh winter, as he stumbles upon a cabin.  He, Big Jim (Mack Swain) and a wanted man, Black Larson (Tom Murray), run some fun gags as they struggle to survive.  The act is wrapped up as abruptly as it began and soon The Lone Prospector is in a snowy boom-town, with eyes for a lovely dance hall girl, Georgia (Georgia Hale).  As usual, she is far out of his league, but to spite an aggressive admirer, Georgia asks “the most deplorable looking tramp in the room” to dance.  The Little Fellow has high hopes for he and Georgia, but there may be a mix of heartbreak and an unexpected rush of luck for them both.

Though this film was silent in 1925, it was re-released in 1942 with a musical soundtrack and a voice-over narration, spoken by Chaplin.  This odd mix of a silent-talkie is what I received from Netflix (which they did not care to mention and claimed was only 69 minutes long, but not every company is perfect).  In the narration, Chaplin not only explains the present situations, but also fills in the dialogue.  I guess this helps the film flow more organically than the stop-and-go of reading in a silent film, but I feel it also detracts from it’s original charm.  I hope to see the original silent version of the film someday for further comparison.

There are many fun and memorable scenes in The Gold Rush.  Many Chaplin fans will recognize the boot-eating scene (complete with a side of spaghetti like shoe strings).  The dancing rolls scene is such a whimsical and wonderful bit that has become legendary in film history.  The Tramp’s wardrobe malfunction while dancing with Georgia is a hilarious gag that embellishes perfectly to the end.  And how he celebrates her accepting his invitation for New Years is one of the most joyous and adorable moments I’ve ever seen on film, perfectly punctuated at the end.

If I had to pick just one favorite scene from The Gold Rush, it would have to be when the cabin is halfway off a cliff.  The Tramp and Big Jim wake up the morning after a snowstorm to an unbalanced feeling, which they both write off hilariously as a hangover.  As they move around the small cabin, they become increasingly aware little by little that something else is off balance.  The whole scene builds both the gag and suspense wonderfully to the very end.  I was laughing and waiting on the edge of my seat like no other film has done to me in a while.

The Gold Rush is one for all film and Chaplin fans to check out.  It’s fun, sweet and full of iconic and inspiring gags.  Whether you can only find the 1942 version or the original silent, it is worth seeing and a lot of fun.  This is a wonderful Chaplin film, guaranteed to put a big smile on your face.

“And of course at that moment, Georgia would forget her gloves.”

City Lights

In 1931, talkies had gone from the newest fad to mainstream.  Silent films were quickly becoming too old fashioned.  Nonetheless, Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed and starred in the silent City Lights.  Surprisingly, it was one of Chaplin’s most successful films, financially and critically.  Some hail it as his greatest work and even one of the best silent films.  It was also Chaplin’s final silent film.  What a shame that the Academy did not see it fit for any Oscar nominations.

The film works like a perfect and sweet romantic comedy.  Chaplin portrays his famous Tramp, a poor, wandering, clumsy guy with a big heart.  We watch him make two friends in the city.  One is an eccentric millionaire (Harry Myers), that the Tramp saves from a drunken suicide attempt.  After that, he takes the Tramp on the town, living it up, even letting him drive his car.  The only problem is that once the millionaire is sober, he has no recollection of the Tramp and throws him back into the street.  It’s a very on and off again relationship.  The second friend is a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) who sells flowers.  Through a series of coincidences, misinterpretations, and a ride in the millionaire’s car, she believes her new friend to be very wealthy.  When the little Tramp realizes this girl is in a financial crisis, and that her blindness can be cured, he works hard to raise the money to help her.  After all, he has to keep up the idea that he’s rich if he wants any shot at romance, right?

I dare anyone to watch a Charlie Chaplin film and not laugh.  Some of the gags in City Lights had me in stitches.  The Tramp’s opening scene is a great one.  Hundreds have turned out for a ceremony for a new statue.  As the sheet is lifted, revealing the new monument, the Tramp is curled up sleeping in the lap of the seated figure.  How wonderfully cute, innocent and hilarious!  And in his attempt to get off the statue, he gets his pants caught on the sword of another figure.  The moment gets more awkward when the national anthem plays, and out of respect, he covers his heart and stands still, his pants still hung up on the sword.  The slapstick style comedy is only slightly physical, good hearted and perfect.  The scene just before the boxing match is another that had me rolling.

Though this is a silent film, Chaplin incorporates a few talkie techniques.  When city officials are commemorating the new statue, they talk!  Only they sound like the off-camera adults in Charlie Brown cartoons.  What you hear there is actually the voice of Charlie Chaplin, the first ever released on film.  Later, in a scene I found particularly comical, the Tramp accidentally swallows a whistle.  What’s worse, he gets the hiccups and disturbs a singing performance at a swanky party.  Before talkies, there would probably only be a certain noise or note from the orchestra to indicate the whistle, but instead the noise of a whistle being blown is used.  Perhaps this scene was an inspiration for the nightmare scene in The Artist.  I do see quite a few similarities, even the use of dogs.

While I still have my share of Chaplin movies and silent films to see, I believe that City Lights is one of Chaplin’s most enjoyable achievements.  What he embodies as the Tramp is a simple goodness that we all should aspire to, and that is evident in the sweetest way in this film.  Whether you love silent film or think it’s too old fashioned, everyone should see City Lights.

“Tomorrow the birds will sing.”

The Great Dictator

I think this film made me laugh more than any other film, ever.  There might be some close runners up, like Snakes on a Plane, or that time my sister and I watched Napoleon Dynamite at 1am on a tiny minivan tv.  Unlike those two, The Great Dictator filled me with genuine, healthy, non-cynical laughter.  And that just makes you feel good.

The story starts in 1918, where Chaplin’s character, The Jewish Barber, is serving in WWI for Germany.  He helps an officer escape certain capture in a plane, but when it crashes, he’s knocked out for years and then can’t remember a thing.  During the year’s The Jewish Barber is in the hospital, Chaplin’s other character, Adenoid Hynkel, becomes Dictator of Tomania.  For those intelligent people who’ve noticed that Chaplin’s Tramp looks a bit like Hitler, guess who Hynkel is supposed to be a parody of.  From here on, we see how Hynkel’s ideals oppress the Jews.   Soon The Jewish Barber returns to his shop, but hasn’t a clue what oppression is going on around him.  Thankfully, just before he’s hanged from a streetlight, his old friend Schultz, the officer in the plane crash, shows favor for his old friend.  After some more hilarity with Hitler –um, exuse me, Hynkel- he finds out that one of his officers has been too soft on the Barber, so he has both of them arrested and sent to camps.  Oh how will The Jewish Barber get out of this one?

First off, can you imagine the balls on Chaplin to make a film openly mocking Hitler just after his rise to power?  The film was so controversial that it was banned in most of Europe.  Oddly enough, and creepy as well, Hitler actually watched The Great Dictator, twice.  He saw this and still fucked up the world for five more years.  I guess if you’re too dumb for art school you certainly can’t understand a Chaplin film.

The comedy is hysterical.  It’s a perfect mix of slapstick and satire with all of Chaplin’s charm.  At times, it can be like watching a live-action Loony Tunes.  Huge guns malfunction and blow up an outhouse, instead of Notre Dame.  Tanks roll out of haystacks.  Famous statues have been altered to salute.  The funniest parts are with Hynkel in his palace.  He leaps across the room, scampers up curtains, peels and destroys a banana while yelling German sounding gibberish.  And there are some great Hynkel speeches, the best Hitler impersonation ever.  He barks and rants in the gibberish throwing in a few recognizable words like sauerkraut, wienerschnitzel and banana.  The speeches are hilariously interrupted now and then by a violent coughing fit, I mean, that’s what happens when you yell like that.

Now, how can Chaplin make Nazi Germany into a slapstick comedy?  Chaplin did say that he wasn’t aware of how horrible the reality under Hitler’s power was when he made the film, and if he had he would not have done it.  The horrible situation is not being made fun of, if anything, Chaplin sympathizes with the Jews and makes them the brave heroes of the film.  Hitler, his ideas and his influence are what is being mocked, and it’s done so well.

Towards the end, the slapstick comedy steps aside and a message of hope to the whole world is presented.  Some might roll their eyes at this soapbox scene, but at the time, this is what the world needed to hear and it becomes the core of the story.

I recommend this film to everyone.  Young and old will delight in the comedy and the political message isn’t too strong to bore anyone.

“Then I’ll sign it. A pen! Und stratz mit ze uldensackt. I’ll sign it! Napaloni, de grosse peanut, de cheesy ravioli. There!”