28. The Gold Rush (1925)

Directed By Charlie Chaplin

Synopsis

The Tramp goes to Alaska during the gold rush to prospect gold. While there he meets Big Jim and a wanted criminal and gets stuck with him in a cabin during a storm. The Tramp and Jim almost starve and are forced to eat one of the Tramp's shoes, soon Big Jim starts allucinating that the Tramp is actually a chicken and tries to eat him. Meanwhile the criminal has left to go look for food and has discovered Big Jim's claim. Back at the cabin the Tramp and Jim get attacked by a bear and kill him, getting meat and being able to leave the cabin. The tramp goes back to town and Jim goes to his claim where the criminal expects him, Jim gets hit over the head and collapses, the criminal leaves and falls off a mountain by accident.

In town the Tramp falls in love with a girl called Georgia and even manages to set up a New Year's eve dinner with her and her friends but they never show up. Big Jim arrives in town suffering from amnesia remembering only that there was a cabin near his claim. He recognises the Tramp and demands that he takes him to the cabin and they will split the money. The tramp and Jim become millionaires and the tramp gets the girl on the boat out of Alaska.

Review

Don't get me wrong, this was a good film and at times even great. Maybe the problem here is that Chaplin was too influential on mediocre comedians who have ruined the quality of his work. However, he is not nearly as funny as Keaton. On the other hand his films has a much more bittersweet quality to them and you spend more time pitying Chaplin than actually laughing at him. This is the interesting bit of the film, unfortunately it has very few laugh out loud moments if you compare it to the relentless pace of the Keaton films.

There are some classic scenes in this film which deserve their classic status. The bread roll dance is beautifully executed and so are the allucination scenes with Chaplin as a chick and the scene with the tilted cabin at the edge of the precipice. But frankly Chaplin has not developed the comic timing of Keaton, he has a much more slow style of film, it gets boring at times.

Again the positive aspect of the style of Chaplin when compared with Keaton is the fact that you feel deeply sad with his character, but you don't necessarily root for him like you do for the stone faced Keaton. Chaplin becomes in this film over dramatic at times. In some scenes this really works, and the heartache of the Tramp after he is stood up in New Year's Eve is deeply shown and it makes for a great scene. In balance the problem is that the film is not dramatic enough to be a drama or funny enough to be a comedy and the plot isn't good enough to make the mix work like it does in films like the much later La Vita E Bella (It's a Beautiful Life).

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Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wiki:

The "roll dance" the tramp character performs in the film is considered one of the most memorable scenes in film history. It was replicated by Johnny Depp's character in the 1993 film Benny and Joon and by Grampa Simpson in the 1994 episode of The Simpsons entitled "Lady Bouvier's Lover".

The Gold Rush was a huge success in the US and worldwide. It is the 5th highest grossing silent film in cinema history, taking in more than $4,250,000 at the box office in 1925. It is in fact the highest grossing silent comedy film.

Chaplin proclaimed at the time of its release that this was the film for which he wanted to be remembered.

The movie was originally released before the invention of sound film. For the 1942 re-release Chaplin composed and recorded a musical score, added a narration (his own voice) and tightened the editing.

Since the film was originally shot at 18 frames per second, the sound version, shown at 24 frames per second, is both shorter and faster than the original silent screenings. This has the side effect of making Chaplin's slapstick routines appear more frantic than before, a fact that had probably influenced Chaplin's decision to shoot Modern Times at silent speed.