The Tramp comes face to face with modern machinery. The newly industrialised world of automated machines, gears spinning and shafts driving. He dances and turns to its ever driving beat. This is until an accident sends him to the streets and once more in to the arms of a woman. After helping her however he is sent to prision. When there he stops a riot and saves a warden. This gets him freed and back into the arms of his beloved. Then another escapade sends him right back but only for him to escape again. This leads to another madcap place, the shack by the sea and a piece of wood that will not stop bumping him on that head of his! The wonderful world of the Tramps last outing is a joy of which you can not miss!!
Taken in its proper context this is Chaplins most political film about America. He was an English Jew and saw the other world as just that. Another world of grinding machines and extra ordinary powers. What it seems he was addressing here was his Englishness (He would later deal with his Jewishness in that master piece The Great Dictator that I will be reviewing shortly!) This is to say that attitude of knowing how the industrial revolution both was a blessing and a destructive curse to this country and her citizens. He reflects the way in which life in this society will push you away and into the arms of extremes and then pull you back into its taxing arms.
He was it would seem concerned with how these things were eating up the common man (The machine literally eats a technician, a sewer eats the Tramp and yes even the house has a hunger it seems for humans! These might seem like mis readings but look at what he see happens when we mingle for long with technology. We become dictators and drive on the production of wealth and human misery. The funny thing is that it seems Chaplin see the alternative as bad and a bit barbaric. Yes he had communistic leanings but he was no fool. He saw mobs stamp along and riots break out and its in here. The haves and have nots are here to, as the Tramp delights in being a nightwatchman in a department store. This is so he can feed his love cake!
It would be wrong of me not to mention the fact I loved this film. The comedy is derived from real understanding for the heart of humanity. The Tramp is possibly the most enduring of Chaplins characters and also one that is most connected with. He is no champion, is often at then wrong place at the right time and mostly gets the sharp end of life. He also looks at the world as little more than a joy to behold and celebrates his living by just getting on with the show.
This show is delightful and funny and Curzons Blu Ray has allowed for it to be as fresh as it was on original reception. The sound quality has also been restored and crafts a symphony of clangs alongside human triumph! What I love about Curzon is that they have given care to a over considered film series. Chaplin is available with a host of vanilla discs and dodgy extras that are not worth a bean. Here you have people that know, documentary on the great works and how we see them now.
