Perhaps she really is a time-traveller, sent back through the decades to make a jaw-dropping cameo appearance. Or maybe she was a maverick genius, secretly testing out advanced technology for the government and caught on camera at the wrong moment.
可能动画片《机器猫》的“时光机”早在20年代的时候就被喜剧大师卓别林“盯上”并运用在他的电影中,要不该怎么解释这件“奇异事件”呢?近日,有心人发现卓别林在1928年创作的黑白电影中出现一个妇女打手机的画面。众人纷纷猜测,也许该妇女是美国政府的“特务”,在片上试用“科技新成果” 的时候无意被“收录”在卓别林的镜头下的。

The baffling scene is found in the extras section of The Circus and shows members of the public attending the premiere of the film at Manns Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. The short piece of footage shows an older woman dressed in a coat and hat with her hand held up to the left-hand side of her face as she talks.
这部“惊异”片场画面来自于大师手下的电影《大马戏团》,电影中有一位年长的妇女(头戴帽子、身披一件黑色大衣)左手举着一个“异物”对准左耳,面带笑容,嘴里似乎还在和“对方”说一些什么从镜头前迅速穿过。

The bizarre anachronism was unearthed by film buff George Clark on his Charlie Chaplin box set. He says he has shown it to more than 100 people and still no one can come up with a convincing explanation. Some viewers have suggested she is listening to a portable radio close to her face, although this would not explain why she appears to be talking.
这个“年代错位”的镜头被电影人George Clark 发现,他说他邀请了超过100位观众来仔细“辨别”这个镜头,却没有一个观众能够解释这个诡异的画面。有一些观众怀疑镜头中的妇女正在收听一个可移动收音机,但是这猜测也不能解释为何妇女对“收音机”自言自语啊!

Portable mobile phones that we would recognise today did not appear until the 1980s and even then they were still too big to hide in the palm of your hand. In a video that Mr Clark has posted on YouTube he jokes that the only plausible theory is that the woman is a time traveller.
我们现在用的“手机”历史可以追溯到它发明的年代---80年代,在它还是“婴儿”时期的时候,它的“体型”是巨大的,所以当时的手机还有个绰号叫做“大哥大”。由于体积太大,用手掌还不能完全包容它。电影人George Clark 开玩笑地说:“现在唯一的解释只能是妇女是乘着‘时光穿梭机’来到20年代的了。”