Gold Rush

UPC: 085393764326

Studio: Warner Home Video

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Suitable for Children]

Summary: He may be called "The Lone Prospector" in The Gold Rush, but the character played by Charlie Chaplin is the same wistful, resourceful Little Tramp that had been entertaining the world and its brother since 1914. A most unlikely participant in the 1898 Yukon gold rush, Charlie finds himself sharing a remote cabin with two much larger and more menacing-looking prospectors: Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain) and Black Larsen (Tom Murray). Big Jim isn't really a bad sort, but Larsen is a murderer and thief. When the food supply runs out, Larsen heads out in the snowy wastes to hunt, leaving Charlie to prepare a delicious Thanksgiving dinner for Big Jim, consisting of roasted shoe. The days pass: in a delirium, Big Jim imagines that Charlie is a huge chicken, and voraciously takes after him with an axe; Charlie saves himself by inadvertently shooting a bear, thereby providing enough food for ten men (Chaplin's inspiration for this episode was the cannibalistic activities of the Donner Party). When the winds subside, Charlie and Big Jim part company. Charlie heads off to seek his fortune in a nearby gold-rush community, while Big Jim lucks upon a "mountain of gold" -- just before he is ambushed and knocked unconscious by Black Larsen. Larsen himself is then killed by an avalanche, leaving Big Jim to wander aimlessly, his memory gone. Meanwhile, Charlie has fallen in love, from afar, with self-reliant saloon girl Georgia (Georgia Hale) who doesn't know that he exists. By a fluke, Charlie and Georgia meet, whereupon Charlie invites the girl to New Year's Eve dinner in the cabin that he is tending for a local prospector. While preparing for dinner, Charlie imagines that Georgia has arrived with her friends; he entertains the girls by jabbing two forks in two rolls, then performing a captivating little "dance" with the pastries. Awakening from his dream, Charlie disconsolately realizes that Georgia has forgotten all about his little party, and isn't going to show up. The next day, Big Jim arrives in town and is shaken out of his amnesia when he spots Charlie. Hoping that the little prospector will help him find his mountain of gold, Big Jim heads back to the mountains with Charlie in tow. The two men nearly come to grief when their cabin, blown by the wind to a mountain precipice, leans precariously over the edge--a peril intensified when Charlie, clinging to the floor, develops a sudden case of hiccups! Luck of luck, the cabin slides safely down the side of the mountain, landing directly upon Big Jim's gold strike. Now fabulously wealthy, Charlie and Big Jim head back to the States on a freighter. Also on board is Georgia, who is unaware that Charlie has struck it rich and thinks that he's a stowaway. She offers to hide him from the authorities, and it is at this point that Charlie and Georgia discover that they're truly in love with one another. The Gold Rush was the longest (it ran nine reels, cut down from its ten-reel preview length) and most elaborately produced of Chaplin's silent comedies (it took him fourteen months to complete). Even so, critics of the era chastised Chaplin for permitting the Little Tramp to win the girl at the end, arguing that the character's "integrity" was damaged by so happy an ending. Evidently, Chaplin took this criticism to heart: in his 1942 reissue of The Gold Rush, for which he wrote a narration and musical score, Chaplin removed the final embrace between the Lone Prospector and Georgia, fading out on a wealthy -- but still unattached -- Charlie strolling about the deck. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category: Comedy

Awards: U.S. National Film Registry – Library of Congress 100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute

Features: ccAll-new digital transfer from Chaplin family vault picture and audio elements
Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as original mono
Interactive menus
Scene access
Languages: English & Fran?ais
Subtitles: English, Fran?ais, Espa?ol, Portugu?s, Chinese, Thai & Korean
Chaplin Today - The Gold Rush: documentary by Serge Le P?ron with the participation of Idrissa Ouedraogo
Introduction by David Robinson: Chaplin's biographer puts the film in its historical and cinematic context
Original 1925 silent version of The Gold Rush: for the first time on DVD, the complete original silent version restored by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, specially accompanied on the piano by Neil Brand, using melodies from the film's original compilation score by Karli D. Elinor
Photo gallery: 250 production stills and historical photographs of the "real gold rush"
Poster gallery
Theatrical trailers
Scenes from film in the Chaplin Collection

Gold Rush

Format: DVD

Release Date: 07/01/2003

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 69 Minutes

Sides: 2

Number of Discs: 2

Language(s) English,French

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish,Portuguese

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 -- The Film
1. Directed by Charles Chaplin [1:00]
2. The Little Fellow [2:50]
3. A Lone Cabin [3:01]
4. Big Jim McKay [2:05]
5. Hungry! [2:56]
6. The Hand of the Law [1:05]
7. Thanksgiving [2:51]
8. A Chicken [5:50]
9. Black Larsen [1:54]
10. Georgia [5:31]
11. Pan Out a Tune! [4:39]
12. Hank Curtis's Cabin [3:11]
13. His Secret [5:33]
14. Hauling and Shoveling [1:26]
15. New Year's Eve [5:44]
16. Second Visit [2:24]
17. The Mountain of Gold [2:46]
18. Back to the Cabin [1:57]
19. The Storm [6:45]
20. Goodbye Alaska [5:15]

Lucia Bozzola

The film he said he wanted to be remembered by, Charles Chaplin's masterwork seamlessly combined humor and tragedy as his refined and compassionate little tramp struggled to strike gold in 1898 Alaska. Chaplin's gift for sight gags and intricate mime is most memorably displayed as he feasts on a boiled boot sole, twirling the laces like spaghetti and sucking on the nails as if they were a gourmet delicacy. Even as Chaplin makes comedy out of starvation and struggle, he reveals the dehumanizing effects of greed as it impinges on the capacity to love. Over a year in production and filmed partly on location near Lake Tahoe to recreate the look of photos of Yukon prospectors, The Gold Rush became Chaplin's first hit for his United Artists studio, reaffirming his superstar status after a directorial detour through drama in A Woman of Paris (1923). The reedited 1942 reissue included music and new narration by Chaplin. The Gold Rush has often been paired with Buster Keaton's The General (1927) as the two greatest silent comedies. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Cast and Crew: John Rand  Actor 
George Brock  Actor 
Cecile Cameron  Actor 
Margaret Martin  Actor 
Jack Herrick  Actor 
Joe Smith  Actor 
John McGrath  Actor 
J.C. Fowler  Actor 
John King  Actor 
Joan Lowell  Actor 
Geraldine Leslie  Actor 
Jack Adams  Actor 
Harry Arras  Actor 
William Bell  Actor 
John Tully  Actor 
Barbara Pierce  Actor 
Betty Pierce  Actor 
Inez Gomez  Actor 
Tom Wood  Actor 
Harry Jones  Actor 
Allan Garcia  Actor 
Frank Rice  Actor 
Ben R. Hart  Actor 
Leland Carr  Actor 
William Butler  Actor 
Sam Allen  Actor 
Chris-Pin Martin  Actor 
Albert Austin  Actor 
Kay Desleys  Actor 
John Millerta  Actor 
John Wallace  Actor 
William Bradford  Actor 
George Holt  Actor 
Jane Sherman  Actor 
Charles Chaplin  Director 
Charles Chaplin  Composer (Music Score) 
Charles Chaplin  Producer 
Charles Chaplin  Screenwriter 
Charles Chaplin  Actor 
Georgia Hale  Actor 
Mack Swain  Actor 
Tom Murray  Actor 
Henry Bergman  Actor 
Malcolm Waite  Actor 
Betty Morrissey  Actor 

Country: USA