However, while the Tramp is ready to take what paying work is available, he also uses his cunning to get what he needs to survive and escape the authority figures who will not tolerate his antics.

I wanted the clothes to be a mass of contradictions, knowing pictorially the figure would be vividly outlined on the screen.

Chaplin, with his Little Tramp character, quickly became the most popular star in Keystone director Mack Sennett's company of players.

Chaplin officially retired the character in the film Modern Times (1936), which ended with the Tramp walking down a highway toward the horizon.

The Tramp remains silent until near the end of the film when, for the first time, his voice is finally heard, albeit only as part of a French/Italian-derived gibberish song.

Despite a few silent scenes, including one where the barber is wearing the Tramp's coat and bowler hat and carrying his cane, the barber speaks throughout the film (using Chaplin's own English accent), including a passionate plea for peace that has been widely interpreted as Chaplin speaking as himself.

[5] In an interview with the Daily Herald in 1957, Chaplin recalled being inspired by the tramp characters Weary Willie and Tired Tim, a long-running hobo comic strip from Illustrated Chips that he had read as a boy in London: The wonderfully vulgar paper for boys [Illustrated Chips] ... and the 'Adventures of Weary Willie and Tired Tim,' two famous tramps with the world against them.

Deep, psychological stuff has been written about how I meant him to be a symbol of all the class war, of the love-hate concept, the death-wish and what-all.

[7] The physical attributes of the Tramp include a pair of large baggy pants, a tight coat, a bowler hat, a large pair of shoes, a springy and flexible cane, and a toothbrush moustache—a mass of contradictions, as Chaplin wanted it to be.

Chaplin's social commentary, while critical of the faults and excesses created by industrialisation, also shows support for and belief in the "American Dream".

In Modern Times, Chaplin creates a "portrayal consistent with popular leftist stereotypes of wealthy business leaders and oppressed workers in the 1930s.

"[10] While the Tramp and his fellow workers sweat on the assembly line, the president of the Electro Steel Company works on a puzzle and reads comic strips in the newspaper.

"What makes Modern Times decidedly different from Chaplin's previous three films are the political references and social realism that keep intruding into Charlie's world.

"[14] "Though there had been films depicting the lives of immigrants and urban workers, no filmmaker before Chaplin had created their experience so humanly and lovingly.

The film was inspired by the noted similarity between Chaplin's Tramp, most notably his small moustache and that of Adolf Hitler.

In his book My Autobiography, Chaplin stated that he was unaware of the Holocaust when he made the film; if he had been, he writes, he would not have been able to make a comedy satirising Hitler.

Chaplin appeared in 36 films for Keystone Studios; 25 of them featured the Tramp character, all produced by Mack Sennett.

Chaplin wrote, produced, directed, and/or starred in eight films for United Artists, though only four of them featured the Tramp character, five if The Great Dictator is included.