This Day in Wall Street History 1937:Chaplin's Modern Times premieres

In 1936, Charlie Chaplin had just wrapped up City Lights and was preparing to visit the nation's auto mecca, Detroit. A reporter for the New York World learned of Chaplin's trip and urged the star to swing by the city's "factory belt system." As Chaplin recounts in his autobiography, the reporter told a "harrowing story of big industry luring healthy men off the farms who, after four or five years at the belt system, became nervous wrecks." Duly intrigued, Chaplin toured Ford's Highland Park plant, and after seeing the factory belt in action, set to work on his next movie, Modern Times. Production on the movie had its share of bumps. Modern Times was set to be Chaplin's first foray into the world of "talkies," but despite shooting audio tests and scenes with dialog, Chaplin opted again for his traditional silent route, save for a song. The movie was also subject to a swirl of politically charged rumors, as studio leaks suggested that film would be little more than Red propaganda. However, when Modern Times premiered on February 5, 1937, the industry heaved a sigh of relief: the movie was hardly a Communist tract. Rather, the tale of the "tramp," played as always by Chaplin, and his paramour, played by Paulette Goddard, mixed slapstick comedy and social satire, as the duo struggled to overcome the vagaries of the machine age--strikes, riots, unemployment and the nerve wracking factory work--and "get along in modern times." Source: www.history.com