He eventually suffers a nervous breakdown and runs amok, getting stuck within a machine and throwing the factory into chaos; he is then sent to the hospital.

He then eats an enormous amount of food at a cafeteria without paying to get arrested, and once again encounters Ellen in a paddy wagon after he is put in it.

The Tramp then gets a job as a night watchman at a department store, and encounters three burglars led by "Big Bill," a fellow worker from the factory, who explains that they are hungry and desperate.

After sharing drinks with them, he wakes up the next morning during opening hours and is arrested once again for failing to call the police on the burglars and for sleeping in the store's clothes on a desk, shocking a customer and the storekeeper.

Chaplin did not understand why Gandhi generally opposed it, though he granted that "machinery with only consideration of profit" had put people out of work and ruined lives.

The illusory drop has been matte-painted, and Chaplin was never in actual danger while filming this scene — in reality, he skated on a plain floor, with a ledge for him to discern when to stop.

A cover of this song by Jimmy Durante was also used in the trailer for the 2019 film Joker, in which the lead character also watches scenes from a showing of Modern Times after sneaking into a movie theatre.

Modern Times was the first film where Chaplin's voice is heard as he performs Léo Daniderff's comical song "Je cherche après Titine".

According to film composer David Raksin, Chaplin wrote the music as a young man wanting to make a name for himself.

The website's critical consensus reads, "A slapstick skewering of industrialized America, Modern Times is as politically incisive as it is laugh-out-loud hilarious.

[16] Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene strongly praised the film, noting that, although there had always been a bit of a dated feel to his previous works, Chaplin "has at last definitely entered the contemporary scene".

Greene noted that, whereas prior Chaplin films had featured "fair and featureless" heroines, the casting of Paulette Goddard suggested that his female characters might be presented with more personality than previously.

"[17] French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty named their journal, Les Temps modernes, after it.

[19] The iconic depiction of Chaplin working frantically to keep up with an assembly line inspired later comedy routines including Disney's Der Fuehrer's Face (Donald Duck alternately assembling artillery shells and saluting portraits of Adolf Hitler) and an episode of I Love Lucy titled "Job Switching" (Lucy and Ethel trying to keep up with an ever-increasing volume of chocolate candies, eventually stuffing them in their mouths, hats, and blouses).

[citation needed] This was Chaplin's first overtly political-themed film, and its unflattering portrayal of industrial society generated controversy in some quarters upon its initial release.

"[20] In Nazi Germany, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels banned the film from being shown because of its alleged advocacy of communism.

[citation needed] Chaplin feared that the mystery and romanticism of the Tramp character would be ruined if he spoke, and also that it would alienate his fans in non-English speaking territories.

The twentieth-century theme of the film, farsighted for its time—the struggle to eschew alienation and preserve humanity in a modern, mechanized world—profoundly reflects issues facing the twenty-first century.

The Tramp's travails in Modern Times and the comedic mayhem that ensues should provide strength and comfort to all who feel like helpless cogs in a world beyond control.

The French company MK2 searched the world for good copies of the original footage, cut them together and processed each of the 126,000 frames, removing scratches and dust, and ensuring optimal image stability and balanced black and white tone levels.

[39] In 2013 Cineteca di Bologna and the Criterion Collection effected further digital improvements of the 2003 version, as noted in a preface ahead of the title.