Modern Times

UPC: 085393765125

Studio: Warner Home Video

MPAA Rating: G   Contains:[Suitable for Children]

Summary: This episodic satire of the Machine Age is considered Charles Chaplin's last "silent" film, although Chaplin uses sound, vocal, and musical effects throughout. Chaplin stars as an assembly-line worker driven insane by the monotony of his job. After a long spell in an asylum, he searches for work, only to be mistakenly arrested as a Red agitator. Released after foiling a prison break, Chaplin makes the acquaintance of orphaned gamine (Paulette Goddard) and becomes her friend and protector. He takes on several new jobs for her benefit, but every job ends with a quick dismissal and yet another jail term. During one of his incarcerations, she is hired to dance at a nightclub and arranges for him to be hired there as a singing waiter. He proves an enormous success, but they are both forced to flee their jobs when the orphanage officials show up to claim the girl. Dispirited, she moans, "What's the use of trying?" But the ever-resourceful Chaplin tells her to never say die, and our last image is of Chaplin and The Gamine strolling down a California highway towards new adventures. The plotline of Modern Times is as loosely constructed as any of Chaplin's pre-1915 short subjects, permitting ample space for several of the comedian's most memorable routines: the "automated feeding machine," a nocturnal roller-skating episode, and Chaplin's double-talk song rendition in the nightclub sequence. In addition to producing, directing, writing, and starring in Modern Times, Chaplin also composed its theme song, Smile, which would later be adopted as Jerry Lewis' signature tune. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category: Comedy

Awards: U.S. National Film Registry – Library of Congress 100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute Best Picture – National Board of Review

Features: ccAll-new digital transfer from Cineteca Bologna picture restoration
Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as original mono
Interactive menus
Scene access
Languages: English & Fran?ais
Subtitles: English, Fran?ais, Espa?ol, Portugu?s, Chinese, Thai & Korean
Chaplin Today - Modern Times: documentary by Philippe Truffaut with the participation of Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Introduction by David Robinson: Chaplin's biographer sets the film in its historical and cinematic context
Deleted scenes: Charlie's nonsense song in its complete version, including the final verse; also a scene in which Charlie tries to cross the street
Karaoke: the mystery of Charlie's nonsense song solved in its Karaoke version
Smile, by Liberace (1956): Chaplin's most famous theme song, from Modern Times, sung by Liberace
Behind the Scenes in the Machine Age (1931): U.S. government-sponsored educational film - a hymn to the assembly line labor in the United States in the 1930s
Symphony in F (1940): a promotional musical film commissioned by Ford, whose assembly lines inspired Modern Times
Per Primera Vezl/For the First Time (1967): Cuban documentary short on the reaction of peasants while watching their first movie, thanks to a traveling projectionist showing Modern Times
Photo gallery: 250 production stills, deleted scenes and preparatory sketches
Poster gallery
Theatrical trailers
Scenes from films in the Chaplin Collection

Modern Times

Format: DVD

Release Date: 07/01/2003

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 83 Minutes

Sides: 2

Number of Discs: 2

Language(s) English,French

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish,Portuguese

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 -- The Film
1. Directed by Charles Chaplin [1:10]
2. Electro Steel Corp. [4:48]
3. Lunch Time [7:00]
4. And Time Marches On [4:55]
5. The Leader [1:56]
6. The Gamin [2:18]
7. Jail [5:23]
8. Orphans [1:45]
9. A Free Man [4:05]
10. Back to Work [1:44]
11. Bread [5:09]
12. A Home [3:02]
13. The Department Store [4:57]
14. The Burglars [3:39]
15. Buckingham Palace [1:59]
16. Factories Reopen! [3:20]
17. The Mechanic and His New Assistant [8:12]
18. Red Moon Caf? [8:21]
19. Sing! [7:09]
20. We'll Get Along [2:05]

Lucia Bozzola

Charles Chaplin's last "silent" film hilariously satirizes Depression-era social ills through the Tramp's disastrous encounters with the industrial age. Chaplin turns his factory worker's nervous breakdown into comic set pieces involving an automated feeding machine, an inability to stop tightening bolts, and, most famously, his entrapment in machinery gears. In a potent satire of authoritarian idiocy, Chaplin repeatedly ends up in jail for stumbling into worker riots and "Communist" protests, yet his ability to quell a prison break while accidentally hopped up on cocaine (!!) earns him the sheriff's respect. Paulette Goddard's fetching Gamin helps Chaplin find work as a singing waiter, but police intervention leaves their togetherness as their only hope. Accompanied by a Chaplin-composed score (including Smile) and synchronized sound effects, numerous bits of business showcase Chaplin's silent gift for physical comedy, including a department store roller skate and maneuvers with a food tray. In a send-up of talking pictures and technology's dehumanizing effects in general, the only voices heard in the movie (save for Chaplin's gibberish song and his fellow waiters' warbling) come from the factory's Orwellian telescreen P.A. system, a phonograph, and a radio. Three years in production, Modern Times became another international success for Chaplin (though it was banned in Germany and Italy) and one of the signature works of his career. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Walter James  Actor 
Mira McKinney  Actor 
Juana Sutton  Actor 
Edward J. Le Saint  Actor 
James C. Morton  Actor 
Lloyd Ingraham  Actor 
Richard Alexander  Actor 
Wilfred Lucas  Actor 
Ted Oliver  Actor 
Frank S. Hagney  Actor 
Fred Malatesta  Actor 
Dr. Cecil Reynolds  Actor 
Charles "Heinie" Conklin  Actor 
Edward M. Kimball  Actor 
Frank Moran  Actor 
Harry Wilson  Actor 
Norman Ainsley  Actor 
Gloria de Haven  Actor 
Jack Low  Actor 
Stanley "Tiny" Sandford  Actor 
Bobby Barber  Actor 
Murdock MacQuarrie  Actor 
John Rand  Actor 
Stanley Blystone  Actor 
Chuck Hamilton  Actor 
Sammy Stein  Actor 
Charles Chaplin  Director 
Charles Chaplin  Composer (Music Score) 
Charles Chaplin  Producer 
Charles Chaplin  Screenwriter 
Alfred Newman  Composer (Music Score) 
Charles Chaplin  Actor 
Paulette Goddard  Actor 
Henry Bergman  Actor 
Chester Conklin  Actor 
Hank Mann  Actor 
Louis Natheaux  Actor 
Allan Garcia  Actor 

Country: USA