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Modern Times Clippings 351/382

Motion Picture Herald, New York, April 18, 1936.

Soviet City Lights Poster, 1936, justinreynoldswriter.com, detail

& CHAPLIN IN RUSSIA

      United Artists announces that the distribution rights

to Chaplin‘s „Modern Times“ for the Soviet Union

have been sold through the Amkino Corporation, their

American agents, to the Soviet motion picture

industry. The deal also includes Chaplin‘s „City Lights,“ and

represents the first time that any of Chaplin‘s sound

films are to be shown in the Soviet Union.

      It is stated that the public interest in „Modern Times“ has

been running high in the U. S. S. R. ever since a Soviet

film delegation, headed by Boris Shumiatsky, returned from

Hollywood with enthusiastic reports of the picture,

which they had previewed in its unfinished form as the guests

of Chaplin. All of which poses the question whether

the prints provided the Soviet Union by United Artists will

contain those scenes, which, it is said, were ordered

eliminated from the American version by „Czar“ Will H. Hays,

as too strong for the delicate constitutions of American

movie audiences.

      Mr. Hays, as indicated by his ruling on Sinclair Lewis‘s

„It Can‘t Happen Here“ and other recent films that

tended to disclose that all was not quite as well as it might be

in this „best of all possible worlds,“ shies away in holy

horror from any attempt at satire of the current social scene.

He seems to believe that the „revolution“ is just

around the corner.

      As everyone who has seen „Modern Times“ knows,

its social content, as it has been screened for

American audiences, is quite innocuous. Its significance,

if any, is solely for those sophisticated folk, who

do not see eye to eye with Mr. Hays as to the merits of our

present social and industrial system. For the others,

„Modern Times“ is just good, old-fashioned Chaplin slapstick

comedy.

      So it may be that the Russians will be disappointed,

if they find that the scenes, which the Soviet film

delegation saw and which greatly enthused them, have been

eliminated by the American movie „Czar.“

      In the same announcement from United Artists, it is stated,

that an invitation to Chaplin to attend the opening

of „Modern Times“ in Moscow, will be sent to him shortly

on his trip around the world. If he accepts, perhaps

the Soviet film industry might persuade him to stay awhile

in Russia and make a movie there, which would not

have to be edited by the Hays office. 

(...) Merritt Crawford, Observing the Motion Picture Industry,

Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin, April 8, 1936

„There would be no changes“

Editorial content. „FIGHT OVER PROPAGANDA IN SOVIET
      FILMS HEADED FOR SUPREME COURT“ (...)

      „Meanwhile Charles Chaplin‘s films are finding great favor

in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Mr. Verlinsky

announced this week that negatives of City Lights, produced

in 1931, and Modern Times, Chaplin‘s latest, have been

shipped for exhibition in that far-flung country.

      Mr. Verlinsky, who closed the deal with United Artists

on instructions from the central Soviet film industry,

said that while Russia exercises censorship over films, both

Chaplin pictures were considered suitable and there

would be no changes. The Russian masses as well as the

industry executives consider Chaplin a great artist,

he said.“ (...)

     

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