4. Modern Times (1936)
By the time Charlie Chaplin was into production on the silent film Modern Times most of Hollywood had gone into full swing with sound and the "Talkie". Chaplin, always the visual storyteller, decided to keep Modern Times as a silent film, his last such film. Arguably his most popular film, Modern Times is Chaplin's take on how the ever changing industrial revolution had affected people during The Great Depression. It once again had his legendary Little Tramp character in the lead, a crystallized caricature of the struggling everyday man. The film's most cherished sequence of course, is the opening scene involving Chaplin, a wrench and an array of grinding gears. As with most of Chaplin's best work the film passes trough comedy and pathos wonderfully, as the Tramp becomes destitute after losing his job as a factory worker, running into trouble and a poor orphan (Paulette Goddard) along the way. The parting shot of Modern Times is not only one of the great final shots in a film, but also a brilliant epilogue for Chaplin's silent film career. The affable Tramp and the orphan escape police once again, and go on the lam. Reluctant that they will be living a life of uncertain misery, they walk off together down an empty highway road, the orphan with a sombre look on her face. As Chaplin's iconic song score "Smile" begins to swell they walk arm and arm, the Tramp stops her and encourages her to smile. She does so and they walk off into the sunset not sure what the times will bring them, but smiling along the way. This was also a great fore shadow of Chaplin's career, which definitely peaked after the release of Modern Times.