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The Talking Pictures Film Club: Modern Times (1936)

Thursday, April 10, 2025
10:30 am11:30 am
845 Philadelphia Street
Indiana, PA 15701
US

What is The Talking Pictures Film Club?

We're a group who gather together over our shared love of movies to discuss our favorites, the themes, genres, and performances of each month's picks. Films will be available to borrow in DVD format at the circulation desk and, when available, we will also let you know where you can stream the films at home. After we've watched the movie, we'll meet on the second Thursday morning of each month for friendly conversation.

This month's pick: Modern Times (1936)
Genre: silent films
Streaming options: Amazon Prime, Freevee, Max

Plot Summary:

Man vs. machine! And the winner is every comedy fan when Charlie Chaplin's Tramp confronts assembly-line woes in this classic chosen in 1998 as one of the American Film Institute's Top-100 American Films. The Little Tramp punches in and wigs out inside a factory where gizmos like an employee-feeding machine may someday make the lunch hour last just 15 minutes. Bounced into the ranks of the unemployed he teams with a street waif (Paulette Goddard) to pursue bliss and a paycheck finding misadventures as a roller-skating night watchman, a singing waiter whose hilarious song is gibberish, a jailbird, and more. In the end as Tramp and waif walk arm and arm into an insecure future, we know they've found neither bliss nor a paycheck but more importantly each other. The times and satire remain timeless in Modern Times.

Modern Times is a 1936 American part-talkie comedy film produced, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. In Chaplin's last performance as the iconic Little Tramp, his character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film also stars Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford and Chester Conklin. Modern Times has won many awards and honors, and is widely considered one of the greatest films ever. It was one of the first 25 films selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

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