Modern Times (film)

Modern Times is a 1936 comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin in which his iconic Little Tramp character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and fiscal conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in Chaplins view, by the efficiencies of modern industrialization. The movie stars Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Stanley Sandford and Chester Conklin.

Modern Times portrays Chaplin as a factory worker employed on an assembly line. There, he is subjected to such indignities as being forcefed by a modern feeding machine and an accelerating assembly line where he screws nuts at an everincreasing rate onto pieces of machinery. He finally suffers a nervous breakdown and runs amok, throwing the factory into chaos. He is sent to a hospital. Following his recovery, the now unemployed factory worker is mistakenly arrested as an instigator in a Communist demonstration. In jail, he accidentally ingests smuggled cocaine, mistaking it for salt. In his subsequent delirium, he gets out of the jail. When he returns, he stumbles upon a jailbreak and knocks the convicts unconscious. He is hailed as a hero and is released.Outside the jail, he applies for a new job but leaves after causing an accident. He runs into an orphaned girl, Ellen Paulette Goddard, who is fleeing the police after stealing a loaf of bread. To save the girl, he tells police that he is the thief and ought to be arrested. A witness reveals his deception and he is freed. To get arrested again, he eats an enormous amount of food at a cafeteria without paying. He meets up with Ellen in the paddy wagon, which crashes, and she convinces him to escape with her. Dreaming of a better life, he gets a job as a night watchman at a department store, sneaks Ellen into the store, and even lets burglars have some food, one of whom is his former colleague at the factory of the start of the film, Big Bill, who explains that they are only robbing because they are hungry and desperate. Waking up the next morning in a pile of clothes, he is arrested once more. ........

Source: Wikipedia