April 16 Charlie Chaplin

Happy birthday to Edie Adams, Charlie Chaplin and Henry Mancini

When I visited my friend last weekend she gave me the DVD The Criterion Collection Modern Times, staring and directed by Charles Chaplin. I was flabbergasted. It was an incredibly generous and thoughtful. This blog is dedicated to my friend Carol.

On the DVD there are several documentaries. One, For the First Time is a 1967 short film about rural Cubans seeing a film for the first time. The documentary shows the hills, dirt and rock roads that few vehicles have traversed. The film makers talk with the villagers and on one has seen a movie. One child doesn’t even know what a movie is. An older woman thinks it will be like a party. After dark the film Modern Times is shown. Everyone is excited, not knowing what to expect. The famous automated feeding scene comes up and everyone laughs young and old. Towards the end of the film the children yawn and struggle to stay awake. I can’t imagine what their life must be like and very grateful for my life.

Another documentary Chaplin Today, two French filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne talk about Chaplin’s film from 31-36. One of them states “Charlie knows what being hungry means”. They talk about the food in the film. I never noticed that before and that intrigued me. So that is what I am going to focus on in the film.

Lunch time at the factory and another man puts his large plate on the bench and puts soup from his thermos into the bowl. Charlie almost sits in the bowl. He goes to hand the bowl to the man and ends up spilling most of it and puts the bowl further down the bench. The man sits in the bowl.

During the same scene Charlie is volunteered for the Billow’s Feeding Machine. An automated feeder that will allow the worker to keep working while eating and thus get rid of the lunch hour. Charlie is strapped in and looks uncomfortable (it reminds me of a dentist chair). First is the soup, the bowl lift ups and tips up so he can drink from the rim. The next dish is cubes of meat that a little arm pushes it right into his mouth. Next is corn on the cob. It is like a typewriter roll and moves around and sideways so he can eat the corn. The machine malfunctions and goes faster and faster until the machine is turned off. The mechanic resets the machine and they start over. The bowl of soup goes up and tips all the way down spilling soup down his chest. More soup and the same thing. They move onto the meat. The plate is full of metal bolts. The bolts slip into his mouth and he spits them back into the plate, but the machine pushes them back into his mouth. Next is dessert. Pie is slapped into his face. The president does not buy the machine it is not efficient.

Paulette Goddard is cutting bananas from a barrel on a boat. She puts the knife in her mouth like a rose stem and tosses bananas to children on the docks. She cuts off a bunch and is spotted. A man chases her around boats until she gets on the dock where she eats one of the bananas. At home she gives her sisters a banana. When her father comes home from looking from work she gives him the rest of the bunch.

Charlie is mistaken as a communist leader and is jailed. At a meal he sits down and bends down under the table. When he bends back up he sees the oatmeal on his plate and looks up like it fell from the ceiling like rain. There is a large slab of bread. Charlie takes it but the large man next to him takes it from him. He sets it down and Charlie takes it again. Back and forth until Charlie gets a small piece. The warden is looking for “nose-powder”. A man puts it in the sugar shaker before he is taken away. Charlie sprinkles the sugar on his oatmeal and rolls. Charlie enjoys his food much more. He takes the bread back. When the man tries to take the bread back Charlie throws oatmeal at him. Charlie sprinkles sugar on the back of his head and down his shirt.

As he is being rewarded with a pardon for his help in foiling a prison riot he has tea.
Alone and on the run Paulette stands in front of a bakery eyeing all the goods. A bread delivery man takes a tray of bread into the bakery and Paulette steals a loaf from the truck. As she runs away she literally runs into Charlie and looses the bread. Charlie grabs the bread and puts it behind his back. He admits to the police that he stole the bread and they took him away. The witness tells the police it was the girl and the police release Charlie in front of a cafeteria. He goes in and fills up two huge trays with food. When he finally finishes eating the table is full of empty plates. He cannot pay and has an officer arrest him. As the police stands outside to call a wagon he takes a cigar from a stand. He gives children huge Hershey bars and packs of gum.

Out of jail again Charlie and Paulette meet up. They have a dream sequence of what it would be like if they were a married couple. Charlie comes home after work and Paulette is cooking dinner. Charlie pulls an orange off a tree out side the living room window. He gets milk from a passing cow and while the cow is automatically producing milk Charlie eats grapes that are hanging right outside the door. Paulette has a huge steak with juice, potatoes and bread.

Charlie gets a job as night watchman at a department store. As soon as he locks up he gets Paulette and sits her at the soda fountain. He puts a mountain of sandwiches and large slab of cake on her plate.

The next day Charlie is arrested for stealing food and spirits. When he gets out Paulette is there to great him and takes them to their new house. In the morning she is cooking ham and pour water into tin cans (I don’t know if there is coffee). While eating Charlie reads the newspaper and finds out the factory is rehiring. Paulette hands him a sandwich which he puts down his pants for storage as he goes to the factory. He gets a job as an assistant to a mechanic. The mechanic gets trapped in the machine. The lunch whistle blows and the machine stops so the mechanic cannot get out. He is on his back with is head sticking out of the machine. Charlie sits down to eat his lunch and the mechanic tells him to get his lunch. Charlie puts a large celery bunch in the mechanics mouth (after salting of course) with stem down. He of course can’t eat that. Charlie puts the hard boiled egg in the mechanics mouth, which he can’t chew/swallow and spits out. Charlie tries to give him coffee but it sloshed all over. At first he tries a oil funnel but decides that would be too messy and funnels the coffee through the roasted chicken. He then pulls of a leg of the chicken and puts it right over his mouth and the mechanic can eat. Then the pie, which is meringue and it falls all over his face. Charlie tries to spoon it into his mouth but the mechanic knocks it off his face onto the ground.

Factory workers go on strike again. Charlie accidentally causes bricks to hit a police man and he is arrested. When he gets out Paulette greets him and tells him that he has a job as a waiter/singer in a café. As he is waiting on tables he goes into the kitchen in the wrong door which causes a man coming into the dining room to drop the tray and foods goes everywhere including over the waiter. Charlie goes to a huge cheese wheel and with a hand drill puts holes in the cheese and cuts a slab.

When he is carrying a tray of food as he gets into the room the dance music starts and people go onto the dance floor and he cannot get to the table. You see a huge crowd of people with a tray floating above their heads. The roasted turkey gets caught up in the chandelier. When Charlie finally gets to the table he tries to find the turkey. He sees the turkey in the light and it falls onto the tray by pulling a few of the streamers also hanging. When Charlie is cutting the turkey it slips from his fingers into another man who treats it like a football. Charlie chases the turkey. He finally gets it but knocks over the patrons table. He hands the turkey to the man who tosses onto the plate disgustedly.

I am now going to have to buy the other Criterion Collection DVD of Charlie Chaplin.

On the Google tribute many have criticized the short. But it does not bother me, it is an homage to Chaplin. If a young person sees the ad and wants to see more and looks him up by DVD or internet they will discover the real Chaplin. He will then live on into another generation.