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Modern Times (2 Disc Special Edition)

Modern Times (2 Disc Special Edition)
Actors: Richard Alexander, Henry Bergman, Stanley Blystone, Chester Conklin, Gloria Dehaven
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD

List Price: $29.98
Buy New: $24.99
You Save: $4.99 (17%)



New (47) Used (15) from $13.70

Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars 60 reviews
Sales Rank: 14980

Format: Black & White, Dolby, Dvd-video, Original Recording Remastered, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), Georgian (Subtitled), Thai (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 165 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.7

MPN: D37651D
ISBN: 0790771683
UPC: 085393765125
EAN: 9780790771687
ASIN: B000096IBI

Theatrical Release Date: February 5, 1936
Release Date: July 1, 2003
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Promotion: Save $10.00 when you spend $50.00 or more on Qualifying Items offered by Amazon.com. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout. Terms and Conditions
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com essential video
Charlie Chaplin is in glorious form in this legendary satire of the mechanized world. As a factory worker driven bonkers by the soulless momentum of work, Chaplin executes a series of slapstick routines around machines, including a memorable encounter with an automatic feeding apparatus. The pantomime is triumphant, but Chaplin also draws a lively relationship between the Tramp and a street gamine. She's played by Paulette Goddard, then Chaplin's wife and probably his best leading lady (here and in The Great Dictator). The film's theme gave the increasingly ambitious writer-director a chance to speak out about social issues, as well as indulging in the bittersweet quality of pathos that critics were already calling "Chaplinesque." In 1936, Chaplin was still holding out against spoken dialogue in films, but he did use a synchronized soundtrack of sound effects and his own music, a score that includes one of his most famous melodies, "Smile." And late in the film, Chaplin actually does speak--albeit in a garbled gibberish song, a rebuke to modern times in talking pictures. --Robert Horton

Product Description
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 neitherbliss nor a paycheck but more importantly each other. The times and satire remain timeless in Modern Times.Running Time: 83 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 085393765125


Customer Reviews:   Read 55 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars black and white classic   September 26, 2008
Paul A. Spangler
Modern times. I saw this because it was chosen as one of the best of the century. Charlie Chaplin had a sort of magic with film and it shows in this one.


5 out of 5 stars A brilliant silent comedy   August 3, 2008
Melissa Niksic (Chicago, IL United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

"Modern Times" is one of Charlie Chaplin's most memorable films. In this movie, the Tramp joins the ranks of the unemployed, and eventually teams up with a poor girl (Paulette Goddard) who's trying to make her way in the world. Like all Chaplin films, "Modern Times" features numerous slapstick routines that are just as funny today as they were 80 years ago when this film was made. This is one of the first Chaplin films that uses recorded sound effects and even some spoken dialogue in the form of a nonsense song, which was Chaplin's way of lashing out at talking motion pictures. Chaplin also composed the score to this movie, which includes "Smile," one of Chaplin's most famous songs. This is a truly fantastic film that people will continue to enjoy for many years to come.


5 out of 5 stars Chaplin's Best   July 27, 2008
Marci Garret (Los Angeles, CA USA)
This is the best film of Chaplin's that I watch many times over. You can't get any better than this. Love the button scene and the dept. store skating. Fantastic!


5 out of 5 stars Amazing.   June 26, 2007
Robert P. Beveridge (Cleveland, OH)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)

I've spent the past few decades assiduously overlooking old film comedies, mostly because of my dislike for the contemporary comedy shorts (the Three Stooges, the Little Rascals, et al.). I decided earlier this year that I was going to stop doing that; after all, they can't all be that bad. One of the earliest stops on this new journey of mine was Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin's 1936 extravaganza that makes it into critics' 100-best lists with almost alarming regularity.

The basic idea is that Chaplin, a factory worker, and Paulette Goddard, a homeless waif, team up after Chaplin gets laid off when the factory closes (it's the Depression, remember) and try to make their way in the world. This leads both through a succession of jobs (and a rickety homestead), as well as more than one brush with the law.

I know there's a great deal of social commentary to be found here; I've read more than enough articles on the film to have missed that. But my mind is a sieve, and I can't remember terribly much about those articles. What I found important, and enjoyable, about the film is that it's a wonderfully-choreographed piece, a remnant of the silent era in the age of talkies (there is very little actual speech in the film), and an excellent showcase for Chaplin's talent for physical comedy. Add to this the eye-popping beauty of Paulette Goddard, a pitch-perfect sense of pace, and an array of sets that rivals most of what gets turned out seventy years later, and you have the recipe for a truly classic film. And Modern Times surely is that. ****



5 out of 5 stars Funny.   April 10, 2007
B. W. (Kansas)
Good laughs. My favorite scene is that with the feeding machine. Even my boyfriend who hates old black and white movies was laughing out loud. Genius.

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