The Gold Rush

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For other meanings, see Gold rush (disambiguation).
The Gold Rush
File:The Gold Rush.jpg
Theatrical poster to The Gold Rush (1925)
Directed byCharlie Chaplin
Written byCharlie Chaplin
Produced byCharlie Chaplin
StarringCharlie Chaplin
Mack Swain
Tom Murray
CinematographyRoland Totheroh
Edited byCharlie Chaplin
Music byCharlie Chaplin
Carli Elinor
Max Terr
James L. Fields
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • June 26, 1925 (1925-06-26)
Running time
Taken at 22 frame/s:
96 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguagesSilent film
English intertitles
Budget$923,000
Box office$4,250,001

The Gold Rush is a 1925 American silent comedy film 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, and Malcolm Waite.

Chaplin declared several times that this was the film that he most wanted to be remembered for.[1]

Though a silent film, it received an Academy Awards nomination for Best Sound Recording (see re-release below).

Plot

Charlie Chaplin & Mack Swain in "The Gold Rush"(1925)

The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) travels to the Yukon to take part in the Klondike Gold Rush. Bad weather strands him in a remote cabin with Big Jim, a prospector who has found a large gold deposit (Mack Swain) and Black Larsen, an escaped fugitive (Tom Murray), after which they part ways, with Big Jim and Black Larsen fighting over the prospector's claim, ending with Big Jim receiving a blow to the head and Black Larsen 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 Big Jim, who has developed amnesia and needs the Tramp to help him find his claim by leading him back to the first 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 on board ship; the sound version ends before this scene. Now, the two share a romantic moment by the old house.

Cast

Background

Lita Grey 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.

File:Goldrush2.jpg
Another original release poster.

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 were nominated for Academy Awards in 1943.[2]

The Gold Rush was the first of Chaplin's classic silents that he converted to a sound version in this fashion.[3] 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 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.[4]

At the 1958 Brussels World Fair, critics rated it the second greatest film in history, behind only Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. 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".

Copyright and home video

In 1953, the original 1925 film possibly entered the public domain in the USA, as Chaplin did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication in accordance to American law of the time.[5] As such, the film was once widely available on home video in that country. In the years since, Chaplin's estate has blocked the unauthorized releases of The Gold Rush in the United States:

by arguing that under URAA/GATT, this American-made film is entitled to reciprocal-nation copyright protection by virtue of British copyright, and that it is entitled to status as a British film owing to the film having been copyrighted in the name of Charles Chaplin, who remained a British citizen during his four decades as an American-based filmmaker.

However, according to copyrightdata.com, the film was first screened in the USA, thereby disqualifying reciprocal copyright recognition under §104A(h)(6)(D); and the film exceeded the 30-day rule (more than 30 days between the US and British screenings), thus also disqualifying it for reciprocal-nation copyright protection.[6]

The 1942 revision that included music and spoken dialogue, is under copyright.

MK2 Editions and Warner Home Video currently holds DVD distribution rights. A Blu-ray edition has been recently released by The Criterion Collection.

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 House which co-starred Buster Keaton. The bit was briefly homaged by Curly Howard in the 1935 Three Stooges film Pardon My Scotch. Anna Karina'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, which also briefly depicts the production of the film, Johnny Depp's character in the 1993 film Benny and Joon, Grampa Simpson in the 1994 episode of The Simpsons entitled "Lady Bouvier's Lover" and by Amy Adams' character in The Muppets.

American Film Institute recognition

See also

References

  1. ^ 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Swedish version, ISBN 978-91-46-21330-7, page 60
  2. ^ "The 15th Academy Awards (1943) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-14.
  3. ^ In 1959 Chaplin re-edited The Pilgrim as part of The Chaplin Revue, and in the 1970s he re-edited, re-scored, and re-issued The Kid, A Woman of Paris, and The Circus.
  4. ^ Mordaunt Hall, The Gold Rush (review), New York Times, August 17, 1925.
  5. ^ Fishman, Stephen (2010), The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More (5th ed.), Nolo (retrieved via Google Books), ISBN 1-4133-1205-5, retrieved 2010-10-31
  6. ^ http://chart.copyrightdata.com/exercises.html

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Gold Rush.

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