Reel Classics: The Gold Rush

Today’s Reel Classic is tru­ly a clas­sic of the silent film era—Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, released in 1925.  Before I get into details about the film, let me pro­vide you with a quote from Chaplin’s biog­ra­ph­er, Jeffrey Vance:  “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.’ ”

Charlie Chaplin, in his “Little Tramp” per­sona, is “The Lone Prospector” who has head­ed for the wilds of Alaska to take part in the Klondike Gold Rush.  As every­one who did so, he has dreams of strik­ing it rich and liv­ing his life in com­fort.  Another prospec­tor, Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain), has found gold when a bliz­zard sud­den­ly hits.  Meanwhile, the Lone Prospector is also caught in the bliz­zard and comes across a cab­in where he seeks shel­ter.  The cab­in hap­pens to belong to Black Larsen (Tom Murray), a want­ed crim­i­nal.  Black Larsen is try­ing to throw out the Lone Prospector when Big Jim appears—also seek­ing shel­ter from the storm.  The three agree to a truce. 

The bliz­zard con­tin­ues to rage and the food begins to run out.  They draw lots to see who has to go out into the rag­ing storm to seek more food and Black Larsen los­es.  While out seek­ing food Black Larsen comes across Big Jim’s  gold and plans to ambush him upon his return and steal the gold.

Meanwhile, back at the cab­in, Big Jim and the Lone Prospector are starv­ing and decide to cook and eat one of the Lone Prospector’s shoes.  Eventually the storm sub­sides and the two go their sep­a­rate ways.  The Lone Prospector heads for the near­est town while Big Jim goes back to his claim.  There he is hit by Black Larsen with a shov­el, and after awak­en­ing has lost his mem­o­ry.  Meanwhile, Black Larsen has tak­en the gold and escaped. 

The Lone Prospector has arrived in town and in a local dance hall meets a dancer, Georgia.  He is imme­di­ate­ly smit­ten and falls in love with her.  She and some of her dancer friends vis­it him and she teas­es him, promis­ing to return on New Year’s Eve for din­ner.  In the mean­time, Big Jim has arrived in the town and his mem­o­ry begins to return.  He remem­bers that he had found gold, and that it was near a cab­in he shared with the Lone Prospector. 

When Georgia does not show up for the din­ner he has pre­pared for her he is sad­dened and goes to look for her.  While doing so he and Big Jim meet and Big Jim insists he help him find the cab­in and the gold.  The Lone Prospector lets Georgia know that he loves her and will return a rich man. 

As usu­al, no spoilers. 

Charlie Chaplin report­ed­ly was inspired by pho­tographs of the Klondike Gold Rush shown to him at the home of his friends Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks as well as the sto­ry of the Donner Party who was strand­ed in the Sierra Nevada dur­ing a snow storm—resulting in can­ni­bal­ism and eat­ing shoe leather.  He believed that tragedies and come­dies were not that far removed from each oth­er.  In the movie poster above it is sub­ti­tled  “A Dramatic Comedy.”  Chaplin was quot­ed in an inter­view with the New York Times in 1925 say­ing “What I have done in The Gold Rush...is exact­ly what I want­ed to do....Back of it all—back of the fun­ny clothes, the mus­tache and the big feet—I want­ed to pro­duce some­thing that would stir peo­ple.  I was after after the feel­ing of Alaska, with a sweet, poet­ic, yet com­ic, love story....I want­ed audi­ences to cry and laugh.”

The open­ing scenes were the only scenes filmed out­side the stu­dio.  We see hun­dreds of men scal­ing a snow-cov­ered Chilkoot Pass in Alaska.  That scene was actu­al­ly filmed in Truckee, California.  The men seen in the film were vagrants from Sacramento, California (600 hun­dred of them) who were trans­port­ed to the site by train and hired for one day.  There are sev­er­al scenes with­in the film that have become clas­sic Chaplin film scenes.  One of those scenes is where the Lone Prospector cooks his shoe as he and Big Jim are out of food.  That scene took three days and 63 takes to sat­is­fy Chaplin (who was also writer and direc­tor).  The boot was made of licorice and Chaplin was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal after suf­fer­ing insulin shock. 

Another infa­mous scene is where the Lone Prospector puts forks in the bread rolls and has them dance to enter­tain Georgia and her friends.  Reportedly the danc­ing rolls were so pop­u­lar that in some cas­es the pro­jec­tion­ists stopped the film and replayed the scene for the view­ers.  Other mem­o­rable scenes include the cab­in tilt­ing in the storm and Big Jim hal­lu­ci­nat­ing from being hun­gry and see­ing the Lone Prospector as a giant chick­en.  These scenes described are part of what makes this film so mem­o­rable near­ly a hun­dred years later.

Lita Grey, who had appeared in Chaplin’s ear­li­er film The Kid (1921), was ini­tial­ly signed to por­tray the lead­ing lady.  However, she and Chaplin began an affair which result­ed in her get­ting preg­nant six months into the shoot­ing of the film.  They mar­ried and he sought anoth­er lead­ing lady.  Reportedly Carole Lombard was con­sid­ered but the role went to Georgia Hale. 

The Gold Rush was a huge suc­cess at the box office world­wide and is the fifth high­est-gross­ing silent film in his­to­ry.  Critics praised it as well. The review­er for The New York Times wrote: “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.”

Variety described it as “the great­est and most elab­o­rate com­e­dy ever filmed, and it will stand for years as the biggest hit in its field....”  The New Yorker was not quite as com­pli­men­ta­ry as the crit­ic did not appre­ci­ate the dra­ma includ­ed in the com­e­dy:  “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....”  However, The New Yorker did include The Gold Rush in its list of the ten best films of 1925.

In 1942 Charlie Chaplin re-released a ver­sion of The Gold Rush that includ­ed a new­ly writ­ten film score com­posed by Chaplin as well as sound effects and some nar­ra­tion.  The 1942 ver­sion received two Oscar nom­i­na­tions for Best Music Score and Best Sound Recording. 

Modern day reviews of The Gold Rush are very pos­i­tive.  The American Film Institute lists it at #25 in the 2000 list of the Top 100 Funniest American Movies.  The American Film Institute also lists it at #58 in their 2007 list of Top 100 Greatest American Movies.  In 1992 the Library of Congress select­ed it for preser­va­tion in the National Film Registry.

The Critic’s Consensus for Rotten Tomatoes states that The Gold Rush is “a delight­ful blend of slap­stick humor, poignant emo­tion, and social com­men­tary.  The Gold Rush encap­su­lates Chaplin’s strengths as a writer, direc­tor, and star.”  The crit­ic for Turner Classic Movies (TCM) wrote:  “Charles Chaplin was and remains...an icon of his­to­ry and a brand name rec­og­nized in every cor­ner of the globe.  Chaplin devel­oped a per­son­al cin­e­mat­ic tech­nique to dis­play his comedic and dra­mat­ic tal­ents and to show­case his star personality....No bal­let dancer was as grace­ful, no clown as fun­ny, no trage­di­an as heartbreaking.” 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates The Gold Rush at 8.1 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 100% and an Audience Score of 93%. 

In search­ing my Roku device I found the film avail­able on mul­ti­ple stream­ing sites:  Hoopla, Tubi, Cinema Box, Fawesome, Classic Movies, Comedy Classics, Hollywood Classics, Freevee, Plex and Classic Clowns.  Several of these sites fea­ture a ver­sion that was restored in 2007 and is an excel­lent view.

I also found a copy of the DVD on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library. 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.