For Modern Times, Chaplin defied convention by producing a silent film ten years after the motion picture industry began its wholesale conversion to dialogue films. It was rumored that in 1934 Chaplin shot some test sequences in an attempt to outfit his famous tramp character with a voice, but soon gave up the whole idea. It was through silence that the tramp became a universal figure, and silent he would remain. Except for a short song sung by Charlie in complete gibberish near the end of the movie, dialogue is heard only from loudspeakers and television screens. This is fitting enough for a story of two people struggling to survive in an over-mechanized world. Chaplin's most politically outspoken film up to that point, Modern Times also contains some of his funniest scenes--especially those in the factory, where by merely being human Charlie causes complete chaos--and his most touching: the final shot of Chaplin and Paulette Goddard walking down the road toward better times is a classic moment in Depression-era films.