History Film / ModernTimes

-->-- The film's introduction.

%%
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/modern_times.png]]

* PieInTheFace: Happens to the Tramp during the DisastrousDemonstration of the feeding machine.

* TheSpeedOfSilents: {{Enforced|Trope}} - despite being shot at a modern (sound film) frame rate, the movie is slightly undercranked for a {{Retraux}} fast motion effect.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* MoodWhiplash: The girls half of the story is quite sad and morose in sharp contrast to the whimsical Tramp side, with her family struggling to survive intense poverty and her father being killed in a sudden burst of violence. It's not until she meets the Tramp that things lighten up.

* SilenceIsGolden: ''Modern Times'' was essentially a silent film with a recorded soundtrack. The only real dialog comes from either recordings or loudspeakers (i.e., not natural speech), Chaplin's way of pointing out his opinion of the artificiality of sound film. Released seven years after the rest of Hollywood had gone over to talkies, and the last major release of a silent film for forty years, until Creator/MelBrooks with ''Film/SilentMovie'' in 1976. Chaplin was particularly adamant since the advent of sound that the Tramp never speak. He finally acquiesces in this film ... only for the Tramp to sing a gibberish song.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: The Tramp gets high on cocaine while in prison. It's not referred to as cocaine, only as "nose powder", but there's no other way to interpret that scene! Quite daring for its time, since UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode (in effect from 1930 to 1968) didn't allow drug references in movies.

* YankTheDogsChain: The Gamin escapes from a couple of police officers who were going to take her to an orphanage early in the movie and after a very long time being homeless or [[TheAllegedHouse just barely}], she gets a nice job as a waitress... and the cops find her again, forcing her to go on the run (this time with the Tramp).

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: When he goes up against three armed prisoners with nothing but his fists and a nearby door. And ''wins''.

* GroundByGears: Subverted. Charlie gets caught inside the machinery, but the gears only move him around without harming him.

%%* PopCultureOsmosis: The assembly line scene has been parodied and referenced in so many works, that one of the first, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI the chocolate conveyor scene]] from the "Job Switching" episode of ''Series/ILoveLucy'', has become equally iconic.

* SanitySlippage: While Charlie is working at the factory. He begins to try and take a wrench to everything in sight... including a woman's breasts.

* SuddenlySpeaking: The Tramp, who bursts into song towards the end of the film.

* SuddenlyVoiced: The Tramp, who bursts into song towards the end of the film.

->''Modern Times. A story of industry, of individual enterprise - humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness.''
-->The film's introduction.

* WithLyrics: "Smile" (a standard popularized by Music/NatKingCole) was adapted from an instrumental theme from this film. It's been covered by Music/MichaelJackson amongst others.

* BawdySong: The Tramp is to sing one as part of a musical act... only he loses the paper on which the lyrics are written, and has to use pantomime and [[{{Scatting}} gibberish]]. He brings the house down.

* {{Scatting}}: The Tramp's song is essentially this.

* NoOSHACompliance: This film provides the image on the trope page. OSHA hadn't been made yet at the time, but any real factory where you might end up being a literal part of the machine traveling between the cogs would have been thought a ''bit'' much, even back then.

* MissingMom: And to make things worse, the father of Paulette Goddard's character gets shot.

* FoldSpindleMutilation: Subverted when The Tramp (and later his boss in mechanics) gets pulled between the gears of a manufacturing machine and comes out just fine.

* FoldSpindleMutilation: Subverted when The Tramp gets pulled between the gears of a manufacturing machine and comes out just fine.

* AccidentalHero: Chaplin thwarts a prison break by dodging bullets and pummeling the escaping prisoners. But he only does so because he was high on [[AddictionPowered cocaine]]--another prisoner hid his stash in the salt shaker to avoid getting busted, and Charlie sprinkles it all over his lunch.

* AssemblyLineFastForward: The TropeMaker.

* BittersweetEnding[=/=][[RidingIntoTheSunset Riding Into the Dawn]]: The film ends with the Tramp and the girl on their own, fugitives from the law, walking into the sunrise--although the Tramp is still upbeat enough to not let their troubles get them down.

* CrapsackWorld: Pretty much a sign of the times.

* IntoxicationEnsues: While in prison Chaplin mistakes [[AddictionPowered cocaine]] for salt and ingests a generous dose. In the ensuing frenzy he ends up foiling a prison break and is hailed as a hero.

* LuxuryPrisonSuite: Chaplin's character regards his prison as this, though it is only luxurious in comparison to how much worse it was to be living on the streets during UsefulNotes/TheGreatDepression. Of course, the fact that after he accidentally prevents a prison break he's treated extra nicely by the guards and the warden helps.

* TalkingThroughTechnique: In one example, some nearby cops interpret The Tramp swinging a red flag as him being a Communist revolutionary rather than him simply gesturing to a driver that it fell off his truck.

* SilenceIsGolden: ''Modern Times'' was essentially a silent film with a recorded soundtrack. The only real dialog comes from either recordings or loudspeakers (i.e., not natural speech), Chaplin's way of pointing out his opinion of the artificiality of sound film. Released seven years after the rest of Hollywood had gone over to talkies, and the last major release of a silent film for forty years, until Creator/MelBrooks with ''Film/SilentMovie'' in 1976.

''Modern Times'' is a 1936 American comedy film by Creator/CharlieChaplin that has his iconic [[TheTramp Tramp]] character struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and fiscal conditions many people faced during TheGreatDepression, conditions created, in Chaplin's view, by the efficiencies of modern industrialization. The movie stars Chaplin, Creator/PauletteGoddard, Henry Bergman, Stanley Sandford and Chester Conklin, and was written and directed by Chaplin.

* BawdySong: The Tramp is to sing one as part of a musical act... only he loses the paper on which the lyrics are written, and has to use pantomime and [[SingingSimlish gibberish]]. He brings the house down.

* BittersweetEnding[=/=][[RidingIntoTheSunset Riding Into The Dawn]]: The film ends with the Tramp and the girl on their own, fugitives from the law, walking into the sunrise--although the Tramp is still upbeat enough to not let their troubles get them down.

* SingingSimlish: The aforementioned song sequence.
* TheSpeedOfSilents: [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]] - despite being shot at a modern (sound film) frame rate, the movie is slightly undercranked for a {{Retraux}} fast motion effect.