Chaplin drew inspiration from photographs of the Klondike Gold Rush as well as from the story of the Donner Party who, when snowbound in the Sierra Nevada, were driven to cannibalism or eating leather from their shoes.[3] Chaplin, who believed tragedies and comedies were not far from each other, decided to combine these stories of deprivation and horror in comedy. He decided that his famous rogue figure should become a gold-digger who joins a brave optimist determined to face all the pitfalls associated with the search for gold, such as sickness, hunger, cold, loneliness or the possibility that he may at any time be attacked by a grizzly. In the film, scenes like Chaplin cooking and dreaming of his shoe, or how his starving friend Big Jim sees him as a chicken could be seen.
The Gold Rush was critically acclaimed upon its release, and continues to be one of Chaplin's most celebrated works; Chaplin himself cited it several times as the film for which he most wanted to be remembered.[4] In 1942, Chaplin re-released a version with sound effects, music, and narration, which received Academy Award nominations for Best Music Score and Best Sound Recording. In 1958, the film was voted number 2 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo, by a margin of only five votes behind Battleship Potemkin. In 1992, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
During the Klondike Gold Rush, in Alaska, gold prospector Big Jim finds an enormous gold deposit on his parcel of land when a blizzard strikes. The Lone Prospector gets lost in the same blizzard while also prospecting for gold. He stumbles into the cabin of Black Larsen, a wanted criminal. Larsen tries to throw the Prospector out when Jim also stumbles inside. Larsen tries to scare both out using his shotgun but is overpowered by Jim, and the three agree to a truce allowing them all to stay in the cabin.
When the storm is taking so long that food is running out, the three draw lots for who will have to go out into the blizzard to obtain food. Larsen loses and leaves the cabin. While outside looking for food, he encounters Jim's gold deposit and decides to ambush him there when Jim returns.
Meanwhile, the two remaining in the cabin get so desperate that they cook and eat one of the Prospector's shoes. Later, Jim gets delirious, imagines the Prospector as a giant chicken and attacks him. A bear then enters the cabin and is killed, supplying them with food.
The Gold Rush 1925 (full movie, public domain)
After the storm subsides, both leave the cabin, the Prospector continuing on to the next gold boom town while Jim returns to his gold deposit. There, he is knocked out by Larsen with a shovel. While fleeing with some of the mined gold, Larsen dies in an avalanche. Jim recovers consciousness and wanders into the snow, having lost his memory from the blow. When he returns to the town, his memory has been partly restored and he remembers that he found a large gold deposit, that it was close to a cabin, and that he stayed there with the Prospector. But he knows neither the location of the deposit nor of the cabin, and so looks for the Prospector, hoping that he can lead him to the cabin.
The Prospector arrives at the town and encounters Georgia, a dance hall girl, and falls in love with her. To irritate Jack, a man who is making aggressive advances toward Georgia and is pestering her for a dance, she instead decides to dance with "the most deplorable looking tramp in the dance hall", the Prospector. After encountering each other again, she accepts his invitation for a New Year's Eve dinner, but does not take it seriously and forgets about it. On New Year's Eve, while waiting for her to arrive to the dinner, the Prospector imagines entertaining her with a dance of bread rolls on forks. When she does not arrive until midnight, he walks alone through the streets, desperate. Meanwhile, Georgia remembers his invitation and decides to visit him. Finding his home empty but seeing the meticulously prepared dinner and a present for her, she has a change of heart and prepares a note asking to talk to him.
When the Prospector is handed the note, he goes searching for Georgia. Jim finds him and drags him away to go search for the cabin, giving the Prospector only enough time to tell Georgia that he will return to her as a millionaire. Jim and the Prospector find the cabin and stay for the night. Overnight, another blizzard blows the cabin half over a cliff right next to Jim's gold deposit. The next morning the cabin is rocking dangerously over the cliff edge while the two try to escape. Jim eventually gets out and pulls the Prospector to safety right when the cabin falls off the cliff.
One year later, both have become wealthy, but the Prospector never could find Georgia. They return to the contiguous United States on a ship on which, unknown to them, Georgia is also traveling. When the Prospector agrees to don his old clothes for a photograph, he falls down the stairs, encountering Georgia once more. After she mistakenly thinks he is a stowaway and tries to save him from the ship's crew, the misunderstanding is cleared up and both are happily reunited.
Chaplin attempted to film many of the scenes on location near Truckee, California in early 1924. He retained only the film's opening scene. For two weeks the unit shot on location at Truckee in the snow country of the Sierra Nevada. Here Chaplin faithfully recreated the historic image of the prospectors struggling up the Chilkoot Pass. Six hundred extras clambered up the 2300-feet pass dug through the mountain snow.[3]
The rest of the film was shot on the back lot and stages at Chaplin's Hollywood studio, where elaborate Klondike sets were constructed.[3]
Lita Grey, whom Chaplin married in November 1924, was originally cast as the leading lady but due to her pregnancy was replaced by Georgia Hale. Grey appeared in the film as an extra.
Discussing the making of the film in the documentary series Unknown Chaplin, Hale revealed that the marriage had collapsed during production of the film; the final scene of the original version, in which the two kiss, reflected the state of his relationship with Hale by that time.
Box office
The Gold Rush was a huge success in the US and worldwide. It is the fifth-highest-grossing silent film in cinema history, earning more than $4,250,000 at the box office in 1926 (~$58.6million in 2023).[citation needed] Chaplin proclaimed at the time of its release that this was the film for which he wanted to be remembered.[5]
It earned United Artists $1 million and Chaplin himself a profit of $2 million.[2]
Critical reception
Big Jim and the Lone Prospector in the wobbling cabin
Critics generally praised the original 1925 release of The Gold Rush. Mordaunt Hall wrote in The New York Times:
Here is a comedy with streaks of poetry, pathos, tenderness, linked with brusqueness and boisterousness. It is the outstanding gem of all Chaplin's pictures, as it has more thought and originality than even such masterpieces of mirth as The Kid and Shoulder Arms.[6]
Variety also published a rave review, saying that it was "the greatest and most elaborate comedy ever filmed, and will stand for years as the biggest hit in its field, just as The Birth of a Nation still withstands the many competitors in the dramatic class."[7]
The New Yorker published a mixed review, believing that the dramatic elements of the film did not work well alongside Chaplin's familiar slapstick:
One might be given to expect wonders of Gold Rush burlesque with the old Chaplin at the receiving end of the Klondike equivalent of custard. But one is doomed to disappoint, for Chaplin has seen fit to turn on his onion juices in a Pierrot's endeavor to draw your tears.... Instead of the rush of tears called for, one reaches for his glycerine bottle.... We do not wish to deride Chaplin. He is as deft as ever and far and away a brilliant screen master. He has made a serviceable picture in The Gold Rush but it seems that he is not as funny as he once was.[8]
Nevertheless, The New Yorker included The Gold Rush in its year-end list of the ten best films of 1925.[9]
Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance considers The Gold Rush to be Chaplin's greatest work of the silent-film era. He writes: "The Gold Rush is arguably his greatest and most ambitious silent film; it was the longest and most expensive comedy produced up to that time. The film contains many of Chaplin's most celebrated comedy sequences, including the boiling and eating of his shoe, the dance of the rolls, and the teetering cabin. However, the greatness of The Gold Rush does not rest solely on its comedy sequences but on the fact that they are integrated so fully into a character-driven narrative. Chaplin had no reservations about the finished product. Indeed, in the contemporary publicity for the film, he is quoted, 'This is the picture that I want to be remembered by.'"[12]
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited The Gold Rush as one of his favorite films.[13][14]
The Village Voice ranked The Gold Rush at No. 49 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics.[18]Entertainment Weekly voted it at No.15 on their list of 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.[19] The film was voted at No. 97 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 2008.[20] In the 2012Sight & Sound poll, it was ranked the 91st-greatest film ever made in the directors' poll.[21] In 2015, The Gold Rush ranked 17th on BBC's "100 Greatest American Films" list, voted on by film critics from around the world.[22] The film was voted at No. 25 on the list of The 100 greatest comedies of all time by a poll of 253 film critics from 52 countries conducted by the BBC in 2017.[23]
1942 re-release
In 1942, Chaplin released a new version of The Gold Rush, modifying the original silent 1925 film by adding a recorded musical score, adding a narration which he recorded himself and tightening the editing, which reduced the film's running time by several minutes.[24] The film was further shortened by being run at the 24 frames per second rate of sound films. Like most silent movies it was originally shot and exhibited at a slower speed. Chaplin also changed some plot points. Besides removing the ending kiss, another edit eliminated a subplot in which the Lone Prospector is tricked into believing Georgia is in love with him by Georgia's paramour, Jack.
You see things that are so peculiarly a result of Chaplin's genius you can't explain them…These situations begin with something absurd: a dancer's feet represented by two bread rolls, a house half on, half off a cliff, a meal made of a shoe. But Chaplin's pantomime changes the absurdity into something significant with human feeling—the rolls come alive with the personality of a dancer, the house, for all its triteness, becomes a stirring reality, and what happens to the shoes is unbelievable. An absurdity has been made real and enormously significant, and this is where you feel whatever emotion was intended by Chaplin…[25]
The Gold Rush was the first of Chaplin's classic silent films that he converted to sound.[27] The 2012 Blu-ray release revealed that the reissue of The Gold Rush preserved most of the footage from the original film. Even the restored print of the 1925 original shows noticeable degradation of image and missing frames, artifacts not seen in the 1942 version.
Copyright and home media
In 1953, the original 1925 film may have entered the public domain in the US, as Chaplin did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication in accordance with American law at the time.[24][28] As such, the film was once widely available on home video in the US. After 1995, Chaplin's estate blocked unauthorized releases of The Gold Rush in the United States by arguing that the film's U.S. copyright had been restored by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act.[29] Regardless, in 2021, the original film definitively entered the public domain in the United States as 95 years had passed since its release.[30]
In 2012, both the reconstruction of the 1925 silent version and the 1942 narrated reissue version were released on Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection. This set included a new audio commentary track by Chaplin biographer and scholar Jeffrey Vance.[31]
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both accolade and controversy.
The Great Dictator is a 1940 American anti-fascist, political satire, and black comedy film written, directed, produced, scored by, and starring British filmmaker Charlie Chaplin. Having been the only Hollywood filmmaker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, Chaplin made this his first true sound film.
The General is a 1926 American silent film released by United Artists. It was inspired by the Great Locomotive Chase, a true story of an event that occurred during the American Civil War. The story was adapted from the 1889 memoir The Great Locomotive Chase by William Pittenger. The film stars Buster Keaton, who also co-directed it along with Clyde Bruckman.
City Lights is a 1931 American synchronized sound romantic comedy-drama film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The story follows the misadventures of Chaplin's Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl and develops a turbulent friendship with an alcoholic millionaire.
Sullivan's Travels is a 1941 American comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges. A satire on the film industry, it follows a famous Hollywood comedy director who, longing to make a socially relevant drama, sets out to live as a tramp to gain life experience for his forthcoming film. Along the way he unites with a poor aspiring actress who accompanies him. The title is a reference to Gulliver's Travels, the 1726 novel by satirist Jonathan Swift about another journey of self-discovery.
The Lady Eve is a 1941 American screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. The film is based on a story by Monckton Hoffe about a mismatched couple who meet on board an ocean liner. Regarded amongst the greatest films of all time, The Lady Eve was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1994 by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Modern Times is a 1936 American part-talkie comedy film produced, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. In Chaplin's last performance as the iconic Little Tramp, his character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film also stars Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford and Chester Conklin.
Safety Last! is a 1923 American silent romantic-comedy film starring Harold Lloyd. It includes one of the most famous images from the silent-film era: Lloyd clutching the hands of a large clock as he dangles from the outside of a skyscraper above moving traffic. The film was highly successful and critically hailed, and it cemented Lloyd's status as a major figure in early motion pictures. It is still popular at revivals, and it is viewed today as one of the great film comedies.
Yankee Doodle Dandy is a 1942 American biographical musical drama film about George M. Cohan, known as "The Man Who Owned Broadway". It stars James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, and Richard Whorf, and features Irene Manning, George Tobias, Rosemary DeCamp, Jeanne Cagney, and Vera Lewis. Joan Leslie's singing voice was partially dubbed by Sally Sweetland.
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in films, literature, and photographs.
The Tramp, also known as the Little Tramp, was English actor Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character and an icon in world cinema during the era of silent film. The Tramp is also the title of a silent film starring Chaplin, which Chaplin wrote and directed in 1915.
The Chechahcos is a 1924 American silent adventure drama film about the gold rush days in the Klondike. Chechahco, more commonly spelled cheechako, is a Chinook Jargon word for "newcomer", and the film focuses on a group of would-be prospectors sailing for Alaska. The film was directed by Lewis H. Moomaw and produced by Austin E. Lathrop, who himself was once a prospector. The film was distributed by Associated Exhibitors. The film was the first shot on location in Alaska.
The Kid is a 1921 American silent comedy-drama film written, produced, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, and features Jackie Coogan as his foundling baby, adopted son and sidekick. This was Chaplin's first full-length film as a director. It was a huge success and was the second-highest-grossing film in 1921. Now considered one of the greatest films of the silent era, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2011.
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds, and featuring Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Rita Moreno and Cyd Charisse in supporting roles. It offers a lighthearted depiction of Hollywood in the late 1920s, with the three stars portraying performers caught up in the transition from silent films to "talkies".
Georgia Theodora Hale was an actress of the silent movie era.
The Northern or Northwestern is a genre in various arts that tell stories set primarily in the late 19th or early 20th century in the north of North America, primarily in western Canada but also in Alaska. It is similar to the Western genre, but many elements are different, as appropriate to its setting. It is common for the central character to be a Mountie instead of a cowboy or sheriff. Other common characters include fur trappers and traders, lumberjacks, prospectors, First Nations people, outlaws, settlers, and townsfolk.
(Sir) Charlie Chaplin (KBE) (1889–1977) was an English internationally renowned Academy Award-winning actor, comedian, filmmaker and composer who was best known for his career in Hollywood motion pictures from his debut in 1914 until 1952, he however subsequently appeared in two films in his native England. During his early years in the era of silent film, he rose to prominence as a worldwide cinematic idol renowned for his tramp persona. In the 1910s and 1920s, he was considered the most famous person on the planet.
Albert Edward Sutherland was a British film director and actor. Born in London, he was from a theatrical family. His father, Al Sutherland, was a theatre manager and producer and his mother, Julie Ring, was a vaudeville performer. He was a nephew of both Blanche Ring and Thomas Meighan, who was married to Frances Ring, another of his mother's sisters.
The Nome Gold Rush was a gold rush in Nome, Alaska, approximately 1899–1909. It is separated from other gold rushes by the ease with which gold could be obtained. Much of the gold was lying in the beach sand of the landing place and could be recovered without any need for a claim. Nome was a sea port without a harbor, and the biggest town in Alaska.
The Klondike Gold Rush is commemorated through film, literature, historical parks etc.
References
↑ Maland, Charles J. (1989). Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image. Princeton University Press. ISBN0-691-09440-3. The United Artists balance sheet of domestic film rentals through the end of 1931 show that The Gold Rush had accumulated $2.15 million in rentals, while The Circus had garnered $1.82 million.
↑ Schneider, Steven Jay (2006). 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (in Swedish). Wahlström & Widstrand. p.60. ISBN978-9146213307.
↑ Vance, Jeffrey. Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema (2003): Harry N. Abrams, p. 154. ISBN0810945320
↑ Mordaunt Hall (August 17, 1925). "The Gold Rush (review)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 5, 2016. Retrieved November 3, 2006.
↑ "Film Reviews". Variety. New York: Variety, Inc.: 22 July 1, 1925. Retrieved November 13, 2014.
↑ "Critique". The New Yorker. New York: F-R Publishing Company. August 22, 1925. p.17.
↑ Shane, Theodore (December 26, 1925). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker. New York: F-R Publishing Company. p.29.
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