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Rating:  -
"I'm going away, and when I return I shall come back!" - Charlie Chaplin, Gold Rush
I hadn't watched any Chaplin since I was a child, and a couple years back I rented a DVD with his *very* early material, and I was sorely disappointed. But Gold Rush is really good, surprisingly funny. I was in stitches at his physical comedy, like when two big men fight over a loaded shotgun, and the gun keeps pointing at Charlie ("the Little Fellow") no matter where he tries to flee to in the room.
Rating: -
If any single figure can fairly be said to symbolize the glory years of the silent films--the cinema's truly international epoch--it is Charles Chaplin's indomitable tramp... The Little Fellow, as millions came to call him, was at once tatty and debonair, brow-beaten and irrepressibly optimistic--and he was, without question, the best-loved international star in all of film history...
His coat was too small, his pants too large, his mustache patently false--and the resultant silhouette instantly recognizable wherever movies were shown... Charlie Chaplin's tramp spoke to all walks of life--and never more eloquently than in such silent films as "The Kid," and "The Gold Rush."
"The Gold Rush" is superb... It deals with Charlie's adventures to win the affection of a local dance-hall girl, and his hilarious efforts to avoid being eaten by bears and by prospectors who are bigger and hungrier than he...
The most memorable scene is one in which he dines on an old shoe... Chaplin's exquisite grace, turned the boiled shoe into a gourmet feast: he carves it carefully, smacks his lips in anticipation, and then eats it with gusto and appreciation, sucking the nails as if they contained the most juices and twirling the laces around his fork as if they were spaghetti...
Rating:  -
Charlie Chaplin famously said that The Gold Rush was the film he wanted to be remembered for. While many people don't consider it Chaplin's best, it did make it onto The American Film Institute's Top 100 (#74). I'd never seen a Chaplin film before this one and I watched the sound version, when I believe it was the silent version that is on The Top 100. However, I'm going to be completely up front about something. Is this really in the top 100 best films ever made? No. Is it one of the best comedies ever made? Yes. It's a wonderfully funny and charming exercise in physical comedy and slapstick, that's brilliantly written, directed, starring, and narrated by Charlie Chaplin. The character of The Tramp, this time called The Lone Prospector comes to the Yukon Territories with the intent to gather some gold. When he gets there, he shacks up with two brutes named Big Jim (Mack Swain) and Black Larson (Tom Murray). When they run out of food, Larson is sent into the blistering cold snowstorm to find some. Instead, he stumbles upon Big Jim's gold. Meanwhile, The Tramp and Big Jim search desperately for food, which leads to one of the most famous comedic scenes ever put on film. This is, of course, a scene where The Tramp cooks a shoe and chows down on it with Big Jim. Anyway; Eventually, The Tramp and Big Jim part ways...Big Jim goes looking for his gold, but instead finds Black Larson and, after suffering a head injury, gets amnesia and can't remember where his gold claim is. Meanwhile, The Tramp falls in love with a girl named Georgia (Georgia Hale)which leads to a happy ending and et cetera et cetera. As I said, I've never seen a Chaplin movie so imagine how impressed I was. This guy was really brilliant when it came to physical humor. His Tramp is one of the greatest comedic creations. The movie has dated a little bit, but it's still pretty funny. I definitely recommend it.
GRADE: B+
Rating: -
The magic of Charlie Chaplain is amazing. The comedy moves the audience from scene to scene following logical conclusion: Cabin fever, bear dinner, house balancing on the ledge, the discover of gold, and reverse of luck for the little fellow. The silent acting skill moves the audience mind tensely between scene connections and allows for surprises and laughter at the justapose solutions. For example, when the prospector loses his memory of the location of his Gold stake, but remembers the little fellow and releases the little fellow knows the location of the cabin and from there the location of the gold stake.
The gestures of Charlie Chaplain are funny. Chaplain could out do Jackie Chan in stunts: running up the wall and hitting the column and causing the clock to fall on the bully. Jackie Chan probably admired the work of Chaplain and emulated his work: the fight at the tavern, jubilee celebration of down pills, and running up the wall in the tavern.
Chaplain has amazing skill in puppetry as demonstrated in his dancing dinner rolls. Chaplain's costume works: the big leather shoes, the funny hat, and the cane.
Rating: -
Though this film is often held up as Chaplin's best, I personally don't think it's his funniest, nor would I go so far as to call it his best. However, after reaching his stride sometime in the Teens and fully coming into his own as a great performer and having his screen persona down pat, he never really made a bad film, just films that were not quite as great as others. I can't quite articulate why, but the storyline just doesn't seem as tight, perfect, or well-developed as in other of his films. Perhaps it's just all of the hype that makes me feel it doesn't quite measure up to his other masterpieces. Perhaps another reason I just don't feel the plot is as tight or as well-developed as it could have been is because of the sudden metamorphosis of Georgia. One minute she's mocking the Tramp with her friends, and not long afterwards she's sorry for how she's been mean to him and loves him after all? She also never really seems that apologetic or like a sympathetic character, which leaves a lot to be desired in this subplot of the main story. I wish there had been more of a believable transition between her mistreatment of Charlie and her eventual repentance and feelings for him. He liked his leading ladies to be talented as well as beautiful, unlike some other comedians of the era, and I agree that Georgia Hale did show talent in her scenes, but she just didn't come across as fully-developed as other of his leading ladies, such as Paulette Goddard or Claire Bloom.
However, all that said, I still really like this movie, even though I don't like it quite as much as, say, 'Modern Times' or 'Monsieur Verdoux.' It's a really sweet fun movie regardless. It is so true that oftentimes there's a thin line between comedy and tragedy, and Chaplin, in his usual genius way, seemlessly interwove the two elements, finding a humorous situation in dark events like the Donner Party and the real-life Gold Rush in Alaska in 1898. Sometimes we have to laugh during the hard times or we'll go insane, find the comic possibilities in things like being hungry (as in the famous scene of Charlie and Big Jim eating the boot). He was a master at making the audience laugh and cry at the same time. There are a lot of great classic scenes in this movie, like the boot-eating scene, the dance of the rolls, Charlie turning into a giant chicken, and the scene where the Tramp first arrives at the dance hall, that iconic image of the eternal outsider looking in. Mack Swain, as Big Jim, also puts in a fantastic performance. He was a truly wonderful character actor, and as he demonstrates here, he was more than capable of playing a supporting role instead of just a smaller character role.
The other part of my reason for giving this a 4-star rating is the fact that the original 1925 film is on the bonus disc. What was the reasoning behind that one? The 1942 reissue, with the title cards removed, a number of scenes removed or edited, and Chaplin narrating it in his very British voice, is on the main disc. At least he was doing this with his own film (the one he wanted most to be remembered for), instead of someone else doing it, but it's still quite distrating. The reason he never had the Tramp speak was because he knew full well what a universal timeless character that was, and hearing that voice here just proves why a speaking Tramp never would have worked. His voice works in his sound films because he's playing different characters; here it doesn't because it's with a character that was beyond a voice. And the action is self-explanatory enough, so it's distracting to have so much of it described for us, as though we can't figure out what's going on or need to have narration over a scene that needs no explanation to follow along with. The 1925 original is also much longer, and feels more coherent, poignant, and funny, giving us the full story, as it was originally intended. The ending is also so much nicer in the original.
Overall, it might be a bit overrated, but it's still a very good film.
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