Can You Hear Me Now?

Occam's Razor, or the law of succinctness, postulates that the conclusion to a problem is always the one that requires the fewest assumptions. When you watch this video of outtakes from Charley Chaplin's 1928 movie, "The Circus", you have a choice of assumptions. It is thought to show a "lady" (she looks more like Ernest Borgnine) talking into a device held to her left ear. You can't tell what she is holding in her hand, but her lips are clearly moving, and she is walking alone. To believe the movie buff who discovered this footage, you have to assume that she is talking on a cell phone during filming of a movie in 1928. To do that, she has to be an alien or time traveler. Would a simpler assumption be more likely? You be the judge. Of course, if aliens had the technology to come here in 1928, is it a valid assumption that they would allow themselves to be caught or film, or is it more likely that this is a crazy lady who doesn't know what she is doing? 

Comments

[Edward Adamsky]

This is interesting and intriguing. The behavior of the person really looks like they are talking on a cell-phone. But, that probably comes from the bias we have today of seeing people do that all the time. There probably is a benign 1920’s explanation for that kind of behavior. An historian of the time period might know of some device that would be held up to the face for some other reason (to avoid bad smells for instance).

[Jan]

As there were no cell networks around, it must have been something else.

Or maybe the guys who restored the film snuck it in as a kind of "easter egg".