Movie Review: Modern Times
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What Parents Should Know
Children will adore the slapstick in this movie, especially
the scenes where Chaplin tries out the feeding machine and when
he experiments with roller skates at the department store.
Grown-ups who watch with younger children can read them the
title cards, and help them follow the story.
Common Sense Media Review
This Chaplin classic (he produced, wrote, directed, starred,
and composed the music) is about two people struggling with the
isolation of the industrial era. Chaplin (simply called "A
worker" in the credits) is tightening bolts on an assembly
line. He does it so intently that his arms continue to twitch
as though he is still tightening when he takes his break. On a
break, he smokes in the men's room until the big boss appears
on a television screen to tell him to quit stalling and get
back to work.
The boss watches a demonstration of a new machine, designed to feed employees while they work, to reduce breaks. Chaplin is selected to try it out. Everything goes wrong in the most deliriously slapstick fashion. He eventually becomes trapped in the huge factory machine itself, stuck in the gears. He comes out a little crazed, tightening everything resembling bolts. He loses his job. A doctor tells him to take it easy and avoid excitement.
Nevertheless, he almost immediately finds excitement by accidentally leading a communist parade while just trying to return the red flag to the man who dropped it. He is arrested. The prison is not unlike the factory in its regimentation. At lunch, the guards come in "searching for smuggled nose powder." The prisoner who has smuggled it puts it in a salt shaker. When he is taken away, Chaplin sprinkles it on his food and becomes a bit delirious. When he comes upon an attempted escape, he captures the prisoners and releases the guards.
Meanwhile, we have met "a gamin," Paulette Goddard, stealing food for herself and other children. Her unemployed father is killed in a street fight, and she and her siblings are taken into state custody, to be sent to an orphanage. Goddard escapes as Chaplin remains "happy in his comfortable cell." However, he is pardoned because of his heroism in the attempted escape, and is given a letter of recommendation to get a job.
After another job disaster, he is "determined to go back to jail" where he was safe and warm. He sees Goddard captured for stealing bread, and confesses that it was he who stole it. But a witness identifies Goddard. He orders a large meal, eats it, then turns himself in as being unable to pay, and happily settles into the police truck on the way back to jail. When Goddard is put in the same truck, they escape together. He takes a job as night watchman in a department store, and they enjoy having the store to themselves. But robbers break in -- Chaplin's former colleague at the factory. And the next morning, Chaplin is arrested again.
Goddard is waiting for him when he gets out of the police station. Goddard gets a job as a dancer in a nightclub and arranges a job for him as a singing waiter. He is a huge hit (even though he forgets the words to the song and has to make them up). But the police come after Goddard, to take her back into the custody of the state. They escape once more, and walk off into the sunset together.
