H@ppy Friday. Today in 1937 the film "Modern Times" premiered in theatres.
Written, produced and directed by Charles Chaplin the film is a comment on the desperate employment and fiscal conditions many people faced during the Great Depression. According to Chaplin, these conditions were created by the efficiencies of modern industrialization and technology. Sound familiar everyone? If you ever worked a repetitive, soul-destroying job you will relate to Chaplin's factory worker. In “Modern Times,” Chaplin plays the hapless victim of circumstance. Again, can anyone relate? This film was added to the National Film Registry by the National Film Preservation Board [the public advisory group to the Librarian of Congress] in 1989 in recognition of its status as a landmark in the history of cinema. "Modern Times" was the last feature length silent film to be made in the United States. Charlie Chaplin was married four times and had 11 children between 1919 and 1962 which may inspired him to say this:  “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”