Can You Hear Me Then?

While watching the extra content on a DVD of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Circus,” an Irish filmmaker says he has discovered what looks like a woman talking on a cell phone, in 1928. Of course cellular phones had not been invented yet so the likelihood that she is having a “can you hear me now” moment is slim. So did this woman have access to some sort of pre-1940s walkie-talkie, or pre-1970s cellular phone wireless communication device, or is she just a time traveler?

The time traveler scenario has taken some hits online because the necessary infrastructure to support cell phones was not in place in 1928. Namely, cell towers. Also the walkie-talkie was not to be invented for 12 years, and when it was invented and used extensively in World War II, it was the size of basset hound and had an antenna that could double as a fishing pole. What this woman is holding up to her head is no basset hound. But as any conspiracy theorists worth his salt will tell you, time travelers have extremely sophisticated communication devices that not only don’t need cell towers to operate, but they are powered by nuclear fission, can broadcast through wormholes, and have very reasonable family plans that let your kids text free. Or so I understand.

But I still don’t think it was a time traveler for a different reason. If you could travel back in time to anywhere, why would you go to the set of an obscure silent movie in 1928 Los Angeles? Why would you travel back in time to Los Angeles at all unless it was to kill Sarah Conner? Would not there be more interesting places you could visit? What about the birth of Christ, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or Willie Mays’ catch in the 1954 World Series?

What we are probably looking at is a woman who is walking along just taking out loud, to nobody, and happens to have her hand to the side of her head. With the miserable invention Bluetooth, the people talking out loud, loudly, in public, are movers and shakers. They are tomorrow’s entrepreneur working the deal. Back in 1928 they were just considered nuts and when you came across one you just crossed the street.