The Gold Rush
Encyclopedia
The Gold Rush is a 1925 silent film
comedy
written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin
in his Little Tramp
role. The film also stars Georgia Hale
, Mack Swain
, Tom Murray
, Henry Bergman
, Malcolm Waite
.
Chaplin declared several times that this was the film that he most wanted to be remembered for.
Though a silent film, it received an Academy Awards nomination for Best Sound Recording (see re-release below).
(Charlie Chaplin
) travels to the Yukon
to take part in the Klondike Gold Rush
. Bad weather strands him in a remote cabin with a prospector who has found a large gold deposit (Mack Swain
) and an escaped fugitive (Tom Murray
), after which they part ways, with the prospector and the fugitive fighting over the prospector's claim, ending with the prospector receiving a blow to the head and the fugitive falling off a cliff to his death. The Tramp eventually finds himself in a gold rush town where he ultimately decides to give up prospecting.
After taking a job looking after another prospector's cabin, he falls in love with a lonely saloon girl (Georgia Hale
) whom he mistakenly thinks has fallen in love with him. He soon finds himself waylaid by the prospector he met earlier, who has developed amnesia and needs the Tramp to help him find his claim by leading him to the cabin.
One sequence was altered in the 1942 re-release so that instead of the Tramp finding a note from Georgia which he mistakenly believes is for him, he actually receives the note from her. Another major alteration is the ending, in which the now-wealthy Tramp originally gave Georgia a lingering kiss; the sound version ends before this scene. Now, they share a romantic moment by the old house.
was originally cast as the leading lady. Chaplin married Grey in mid-1924, and she was replaced in the film by Georgia Hale
. Although photographs of Grey exist in the role, documentaries such as Unknown Chaplin
and Chaplin Today: The Gold Rush do not contain any film footage of her, indicating no such footage survives.
Chaplin attempted to film many of the scenes on location near Truckee, California
, in early 1924. He abandoned most of this footage (which included him being chased through the snow by Big Jim, instead of just around the hut as in the final cut), retaining only the film's opening scene. The final film was shot on the backlot and stages at Chaplin's Hollywood studio, where elaborate Klondike sets were constructed.
Discussing the making of the film in the documentary series Unknown Chaplin, Hale revealed that she had idolized Chaplin since childhood and that the final scene of the original version, in which the two kiss, reflected the state of their relationship by that time (Chaplin's marriage to Lita Grey having collapsed during production of the film). Hale discusses her relationship with Chaplin in her memoir Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-Ups.
The Gold Rush was a huge success in the US and worldwide. It is the fifth highest grossing silent film in cinema history, taking in more than $4,250,001 at the box office in 1926, and the highest grossing silent comedy. Chaplin proclaimed at the time of its release that this was the film for which he wanted to be remembered.
The new music score by Max Terr and the sound recording by James L. Fields
were nominated for Academy Awards in 1943.
The Gold Rush was the first of Chaplin's classic silents that he converted to a sound version in this fashion. As revealed in the 2003 DVD release, the reissue of The Gold Rush also served to preserve most of the footage from the original film, as even the DVD-restored print of the 1925 original shows noticeable degradation of image and missing frames, artifacts not in evidence in the 1942 version.
wrote in The New York Times:
In 1992 The Gold Rush was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
by the Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
which co-starred Buster Keaton
. The bit was briefly homaged by Curly Howard
in the 1935 Three Stooges
film Pardon My Scotch
. Anne Karenina's character in Bande à Part references it before the famous dance scene. In more recent times, it was replicated by Robert Downey Jr. in his lead role as Charles Chaplin in the 1992 Chaplin as well as 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
".
American Film Institute
recognition
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
comedy
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
in his Little Tramp
The Tramp
The Tramp, also known as The Little Tramp was Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character, a recognized icon of world cinema most dominant during the silent film era....
role. The film also stars Georgia Hale
Georgia Hale
Georgia Hale was an actress of the silent movie era.-Career:Georgia Theodora Hale was Miss Chicago 1922 and competed in the Miss America Pageant...
, Mack Swain
Mack Swain
Mack Swain was an American actor and vaudevillian, prolific throughout the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s.-Film career:...
, Tom Murray
Tom Murray (actor)
Tom Murray was an American film actor. He appeared in thirteen films between 1922 and 1931. Born in Stonefort, Illinois and died in Hollywood, California of a heart attack.-Filmography:-External links:...
, Henry Bergman
Henry Bergman
Henry Bergman was an American actor of stage and film, known for his long association with Charlie Chaplin....
, Malcolm Waite
Malcolm Waite
Malcom Waite , was an American film actor. He appeared in 31 films between 1924 and 1942.He was born in Memominee, Michigan and died in Van Nuys, California.-External links:...
.
Chaplin declared several times that this was the film that he most wanted to be remembered for.
Though a silent film, it received an Academy Awards nomination for Best Sound Recording (see re-release below).
Plot
The TrampThe Tramp
The Tramp, also known as The Little Tramp was Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character, a recognized icon of world cinema most dominant during the silent film era....
(Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
) travels to the Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
to take part in the Klondike Gold Rush
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush, also called the Yukon Gold Rush, the Alaska Gold Rush and the Last Great Gold Rush, was an attempt by an estimated 100,000 people to travel to the Klondike region the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1897 and 1899 in the hope of successfully prospecting for gold...
. Bad weather strands him in a remote cabin with a prospector who has found a large gold deposit (Mack Swain
Mack Swain
Mack Swain was an American actor and vaudevillian, prolific throughout the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s.-Film career:...
) and an escaped fugitive (Tom Murray
Tom Murray (actor)
Tom Murray was an American film actor. He appeared in thirteen films between 1922 and 1931. Born in Stonefort, Illinois and died in Hollywood, California of a heart attack.-Filmography:-External links:...
), after which they part ways, with the prospector and the fugitive fighting over the prospector's claim, ending with the prospector receiving a blow to the head and the fugitive falling off a cliff to his death. The Tramp eventually finds himself in a gold rush town where he ultimately decides to give up prospecting.
After taking a job looking after another prospector's cabin, he falls in love with a lonely saloon girl (Georgia Hale
Georgia Hale
Georgia Hale was an actress of the silent movie era.-Career:Georgia Theodora Hale was Miss Chicago 1922 and competed in the Miss America Pageant...
) whom he mistakenly thinks has fallen in love with him. He soon finds himself waylaid by the prospector he met earlier, who has developed amnesia and needs the Tramp to help him find his claim by leading him to the cabin.
One sequence was altered in the 1942 re-release so that instead of the Tramp finding a note from Georgia which he mistakenly believes is for him, he actually receives the note from her. Another major alteration is the ending, in which the now-wealthy Tramp originally gave Georgia a lingering kiss; the sound version ends before this scene. Now, they share a romantic moment by the old house.
Cast
- Charlie ChaplinCharlie ChaplinSir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
as The Tramp (labeled as The Lone Prospector) - Mack SwainMack SwainMack Swain was an American actor and vaudevillian, prolific throughout the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s.-Film career:...
as Big Jim McKay - Tom MurrayTom Murray (actor)Tom Murray was an American film actor. He appeared in thirteen films between 1922 and 1931. Born in Stonefort, Illinois and died in Hollywood, California of a heart attack.-Filmography:-External links:...
as Black Larsen - Malcolm WaiteMalcolm WaiteMalcom Waite , was an American film actor. He appeared in 31 films between 1924 and 1942.He was born in Memominee, Michigan and died in Van Nuys, California.-External links:...
as Jack Cameron - Georgia HaleGeorgia HaleGeorgia Hale was an actress of the silent movie era.-Career:Georgia Theodora Hale was Miss Chicago 1922 and competed in the Miss America Pageant...
as Georgia - Henry BergmanHenry BergmanHenry Bergman was an American actor of stage and film, known for his long association with Charlie Chaplin....
as Hank Curtis
Background
Lita GreyLita Grey
Lita Grey was an American actress and the second wife of Charlie Chaplin. She was born in Hollywood, California, in 1908, to a Mexican-born mother and a father of Irish heritage and christened Lillita Louise MacMurray.-Personal life:Grey married four times...
was originally cast as the leading lady. Chaplin married Grey in mid-1924, and she was replaced in the film by Georgia Hale
Georgia Hale
Georgia Hale was an actress of the silent movie era.-Career:Georgia Theodora Hale was Miss Chicago 1922 and competed in the Miss America Pageant...
. Although photographs of Grey exist in the role, documentaries such as Unknown Chaplin
Unknown Chaplin
Unknown Chaplin is an acclaimed three-part 1983 British television documentary about the career and the methods of the film luminary Charles Chaplin using previously unseen film for illustration....
and Chaplin Today: The Gold Rush do not contain any film footage of her, indicating no such footage survives.
Chaplin attempted to film many of the scenes on location near Truckee, California
Truckee, California
Truckee is an incorporated town in Nevada County, California, United States. The population was 16,180 at the 2010 census, up from 13,864 at the 2000 census.-Name:...
, in early 1924. He abandoned most of this footage (which included him being chased through the snow by Big Jim, instead of just around the hut as in the final cut), retaining only the film's opening scene. The final film was shot on the backlot and stages at Chaplin's Hollywood studio, where elaborate Klondike sets were constructed.
Discussing the making of the film in the documentary series Unknown Chaplin, Hale revealed that she had idolized Chaplin since childhood and that the final scene of the original version, in which the two kiss, reflected the state of their relationship by that time (Chaplin's marriage to Lita Grey having collapsed during production of the film). Hale discusses her relationship with Chaplin in her memoir Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-Ups.
The Gold Rush was a huge success in the US and worldwide. It is the fifth highest grossing silent film in cinema history, taking in more than $4,250,001 at the box office in 1926, and the highest grossing silent comedy. Chaplin proclaimed at the time of its release that this was the film for which he wanted to be remembered.
1942 re-release
In 1942, Chaplin released a new version of The Gold Rush, taking the original silent 1925 film and composing and recording a musical score, adding a narration which he recorded himself, and tightening the editing which reduced the film's running time by several minutes. The film is also shortened by being run at 'sound speed', i.e. 24 frames per second; like most silent movies it was originally shot and exhibited at a slower speed. As noted above, Chaplin also changed some plot points. Besides removing the kiss at the end, another change eliminated a subplot in which Charlie is tricked into believing Georgia is in love with him by Georgia's paramour, Jack.The new music score by Max Terr and the sound recording by James L. Fields
James L. Fields
James L. Fields was an American sound engineer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards in the category Sound Recording. He worked on 400 films over a period of 45 years.-Selected filmography:* The Gold Rush...
were nominated for Academy Awards in 1943.
The Gold Rush was the first of Chaplin's classic silents that he converted to a sound version in this fashion. As revealed in the 2003 DVD release, the reissue of The Gold Rush also served to preserve most of the footage from the original film, as even the DVD-restored print of the 1925 original shows noticeable degradation of image and missing frames, artifacts not in evidence in the 1942 version.
Critical reception
In its original 1925 release, The Gold Rush was generally praised by critics. Mordaunt HallMordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for The New York Times, from October 1924 to September 1934....
wrote in The New York Times:
In 1992 The Gold Rush was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Pop culture references
The "roll dance" the tramp character performs in the film is considered one of the most memorable scenes in film history, although Roscoe Arbuckle did something similar in the 1917 movie The Rough HouseThe Rough House
The Rough House is a short comedy film written and directed by and starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. The Rough House was Keaton's first film as a director.-Cast:* Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle - Mr Rough...
which co-starred Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
. The bit was briefly homaged by Curly Howard
Curly Howard
Jerome Lester "Jerry" Horwitz , better known by his stage name Curly Howard, was an American comedian and vaudevillian. He is best known as a member of the American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges, along with his older brothers Moe Howard and Shemp Howard, and actor Larry Fine...
in the 1935 Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
film Pardon My Scotch
Pardon My Scotch
Pardon My Scotch is the ninth short subject starring American slapstick comedy team the Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.-Plot:...
. Anne Karenina's character in Bande à Part references it before the famous dance scene. In more recent times, it was replicated by Robert Downey Jr. in his lead role as Charles Chaplin in the 1992 Chaplin as well as by
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
's character in the 1993 film Benny and Joon and by Grampa Simpson
Abraham Simpson
Abraham J. "Abe" Simpson, often known simply as Grampa, is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and he is also the patriarch of the Simpson family, the father of Homer Simpson, and the grandfather of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson...
in the 1994 episode of The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
entitled "Lady Bouvier's Lover
Lady Bouvier's Lover
"Lady Bouvier's Lover" is the twenty-first episode of The Simpsons fifth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 12, 1994. In the episode, Grampa Simpson falls in love with Marge's mother, Jacqueline Bouvier, and they start dating. However, on a night out in town,...
".
American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
recognition
- 1998 AFI's 100 Years... 100 MoviesAFI's 100 Years... 100 MoviesThe first of the AFI 100 Years… series of cinematic milestones, AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies is a list of the 100 best American movies, as determined by the American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry who chose from a list of 400 nominated movies...
#74 - 2000 AFI's 100 Years... 100 LaughsAFI's 100 Years... 100 LaughsPart of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Laughs is a list of the top 100 funniest movies in American cinema. A wide variety of comedies were nominated for the distinction that included slapstick comedy, screwball comedy, romantic comedy, satire, black comedy, musical comedy, comedy of...
#25 - 2007 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) #58