1928 Movie Shows Woman Using 'Mobile Phone'

This clip from a film about the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 movie The Circus shows what appears to be a woman talking on a mobile phone in the opening scene (on the right)

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.

Her gestures as she walks and talks appear just like those of modern-day mobile phone users

There is no one around for her to be speaking to apart from a suited man who strides on ahead at the beginning of the shot.

Even her gestures and behaviour as she 'talks' will be eerily familiar to modern-day viewers as she appears to stop, mid-sentence, during her apparent conversation.
Some viewers have suggested that she is simply trying to hide her face from the camera so she is not filmed

In The Circus, Chaplin's character falls in love with the circus-owner's daughter

Chaplin’s The Circus was one of the master director’s final silent movies and won him the Academy Award in 1929 for ‘Versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing’.