Cinema
The Gold Rush
Charlie Chaplin · 1925
Synopsis
During the Klondike gold rush, a lone prospector, the Tramp, is caught in a storm and takes refuge in the cabin of the outlaw Black Larsen, where Big Jim McKay also arrives, having just found a large vein of gold. Food runs out; they draw lots, and Larsen leaves to look for something to eat. Left alone, the Tramp and Big Jim boil a shoe and eat it, then Big Jim, delirious with hunger, sees his companion as a giant chicken. Later, in a town of the gold rush, the Tramp falls in love with Georgia, a saloon dancer who ignores him.
Context
The idea came from photographs of the line of gold prospectors at the Chilkoot Pass, seen at the home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, and from the story of the Donner party. The exteriors were shot near Truckee, in the Sierra Nevada, with some six hundred extras, and a mountain was then built in the studio. The shoe in the meal scene was made of liquorice: the scene took three days and sixty-three takes, and the laxative effect of the liquorice put Chaplin and Mack Swain out of action for a time. In 1942, Chaplin released a sound version, with a commentary that he spoke himself in place of the intertitles, and only this version then circulated legally for decades.
Who it is for
A silent film of one hour thirty-five minutes in its 1925 version; the shorter 1942 sound version runs one hour twelve minutes.
Prizes and reception
One of the greatest financial successes of the silent era; the publicity of the time attributed to Chaplin the wish to be remembered for this film.
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