Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936)

Screened with:
Dave Fleischer's "Mechanical Monsters" (1941)
Max Gold's "La Lengua de Pandora (2004)

So you’re sitting in a dark theater, watching Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. Something strikes you as very odd. First, someone must have left the print out in the sun; it’s faded to the point where there’s no color. It’s all, like, gray. And what’s more it’s got a soundtrack but you can’t hear what anyone says – instead you have to read what they say. Whassup with that?

You check the date on the movie: 1936. Didn’t they have color yet? (Yes.) Hadn’t “talkies” been invented? (Yes, in 1927 with The Jazz Singer.) Oh, man, is this, like, one of those OLD movies?
Yes it is. Your Humble Commentator has a soft spot for two things considered shockingly primitive and barely museum-worthy by modern movie-goers: silent film and black and white cinematography. Whoa.

There are so many reasons to see this movie. For one, it’s funny. Here again (and for the last time) is the Chaplin’s Little Tramp, stuck in Depression-era America, wandering into one pitfall after the next, always happily going wherever he's kicked, always bearing with guileless dignity each humiliation that comes his way. For another, the Little Tramp has become an internationally recognized figure, with his bowler hat, cane and splayed feet in over-sized shoes. We here at the Classic Film Series feel it is always worth seeing the original of something that has been ripped off by countless others, to see the originator of a particular style before one yaks about the comic genius of Roberto Benigni. Third, this is a film with a conscience. Modern Times is a critique of capitalism that is as scathing as it is sentimental, and – as Chaplin’s final silent film (with title cards but also with sound and some spoken dialogue) – it's also a fond farewell to an era of cinema. In short, Modern Times has a grace and quality to it not necessarily absent from but different from the modern film-going experience. Watch enough movies like this one, and you’ll come to miss it.

Speaking of the qualities of yesteryear, seeing Disney’s recent Home on the Range, purported to be their last animated film using traditional hand animation, we thought it might be worth honoring one of the great, but unheralded, cartoon studios. Y’all know about Warner Bros. (Chuck Jones et. al.) and MGM (Tex Avery w/ Tom and Jerry), but in the 1930s and ‘40s there was also Fleischer studios (originally famous for their Popeye cartoons). Today we bring you Dave Fleischer’s 1941 Superman cartoon “The Mechanical Monsters.” Note the warmth and depth of the animation, the sense of style, the radical perspectives, and dynamic use of illustrated lighting effects. We’re not knocking computer animation, and we acknowledge the difficulty and astronomical expense of hand animation in a bottom-line world. But it will be a shame when cartoons like this one are completely a thing of the past. Fleischer only made 17 of these Superman toons, but each is a six-minute masterpiece. Enjoy.

R. Findlay
Film Club Adviser