The Gold Rush
1925 Directed by Charlie Chaplin
Synopsis
A lone prospector ventures into Alaska looking for gold. He gets mixed up with some burly characters and falls in love with the beautiful Georgia. He tries to win her heart with his singular charm.
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I have to be honest - I never expected Charlie Chaplin to be anywhere near the craftsman he turned out to be. The dependence on mugging and gimmicks, the disadvantage of having to create an industry practically from scratch nearly a century ago, and the mainstream popularity that unfortunately I tend to associate in comedy with comedians that play to the lowest common denominator, all lead me to believe that the love for Chaplin was mostly a result of nostalgia - and, of course, the notion that "well, this was all very innovative for the time", which is great for film historians but doesn't make things any more watchable for first time…
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Criterion's Chaplin collection continues to grow with the release of his 1925 classic comedy The Gold Rush. The disc contains both the original silent release and the definitive 1942 version of the film, both of which have been given a full HD restoration. As for the movie itself, The Gold Rush is a timeless comedic masterpiece with a lot of heart and some wonderful examples of early visual effects.
The film opens with a magnificent shot of hundreds of people traversing the Chilkoot Pass, ascending the snow covered mountainside in an epic wide shot that brings to mind the open sequence of Werner Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God. This is one of many visually arresting images throughout the film,…
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"and of course at that moment Georgia would forget her gloves"
The Gold Rush is a wholly genius film and deserves all the praise it gets and more. The outstanding combination of incredible visuals and an endearing story makes this film nothing short of a masterpiece.
The story follows a lone prospector (Charlie Chaplin playing The Tramp) as he attempts to survive in Alaska. He gets mixed up with a gold miner named Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain) who's found himself a mountain of gold and the criminal Black Larsen (Tom Murray) who's trying to steal it for himself. All the while the lone prospector finds himself falling for a girl named Georgia (Georgia Hale) that just wants to run…
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Film 73 of The December Project
Have I changed, or is this quite different from the other most famous Charlie Chaplin films?
I never quite understood how the Little Tramp seemed to know neither people nor the streets in his city. But here he is newly arrived in Alaska for gold-prospecting as so many desperate men must have done, no better equipped for his environment than someone attempting to climb Everest in t-shirt, jeans and trainers.
This time it's clear why he's clueless - he's somewhere that most inexperienced people would struggle. And that especially made me stop caring half so much about all that stuff I heard in the past about Chaplin being Not a Very Nice Man.I…
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86/100
Makes me sad when people use Keaton as a club against Chaplin—the former's sensibility is unquestionably more "modern" from our perspective, but that doesn't somehow negate the latter's vaudevillian genius. And both were relentless cinematic innovators, as The Gold Rush's several standout F/X setpieces memorably demonstrate. The climactic teetering cabin remains a remarkable feat of engineering, amplified by masterful timing on the part of Chaplin and Swain (there are few more reliable comic devices than weight distribution); it also nicely echoes/enlarges the earlier cabin sequence, which is 100% physical dexterity on Chaplin's part—never fails to crack me up every time the door flies open and blows him across the room like a plastic bag. First section is essentially a…
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Watching Chaplin with a four year old may be the ideal way to do it. Watching alone several years ago, I remember being amused and charmed (and knocked out by the choreography, the design, the detail) - but with my son it was interactive and laugh out loud funny (we cringed in fear as the cabin threatened to fall off the cliff and got hysterical during Chaplin's famous dancing dinner roll sequence). He has learned that comedies end with people falling in love and was a little confounded when no conceivable love interest had appeared half way through the film, but was doing a fine little tramp impression by film's end.
We watched the version available on Hulu that replaces title cards with Chaplins narration. I was skeptical, but found it fun and often very funny.
Our comedy masters of the silent era continues next week with Harold Lloyd's Safety Last.
Sherlock Jr *****
The Gold Rush *****
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What isn't to like about Chaplin?
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The June Challenge #1
All the things that make Charlie Chaplin films fulfilling are present in The Gold Rush: funny pantomime comedy, the ability to portray emotions and characterization through physicality rather than intertitles, and simple but effective morals. However, what The Gold Rush lacks in comparison to some of Chaplin's other works is good structure. The film transitions abruptly from the Tramp's prospecting pursuits to his work in town, and the return of the fellow prospector, while resulting in a brilliant scene involving a cabin and a cliff, provides a second jarring shift. -
As the title card inaugurates "a dramatic comedy" in Chaplin's tremendous silent film, I was eager to expect this typically tender, heartrendingly affecting and physically hilarious piece of iconic cinema. These attributes most certainly happened, but more importantly I got the most uncharacteristically outdoors adventure which has pretty much surpassed any Hollywood backwoods comedy of the last 88 years. To storyboard the 19th century Klondike gold mining culture was already a far removed source from Chaplin's usual contemporary urban comedies. I'm sure the element of cannibalism and the Donner Party's tragic fate would've undergone some controversy. And of course, he succeeded with flying colours when placing a laugh riot in the context of a historical event. But enough about its…
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"and of course at that moment Georgia would forget her gloves"
The Gold Rush is a wholly genius film and deserves all the praise it gets and more. The outstanding combination of incredible visuals and an endearing story makes this film nothing short of a masterpiece.
The story follows a lone prospector (Charlie Chaplin playing The Tramp) as he attempts to survive in Alaska. He gets mixed up with a gold miner named Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain) who's found himself a mountain of gold and the criminal Black Larsen (Tom Murray) who's trying to steal it for himself. All the while the lone prospector finds himself falling for a girl named Georgia (Georgia Hale) that just wants to run…
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The Gold rush is the second Charlie Chaplin film I've watched recently the other being Modern Time, and both have blown me away. I remember watching scenes of Chaplin as a child but i never watch any from beginning to end as i can remember.
The Simple story of a lone prospector travelling to find his fortune, but instead may have found love. The film contains some of Chaplin's most famous scenes. The dancing Potatoes which still today is still hysterical and utterly charming and sweet. Which everyone has probably tried to emulate at some point in their lives. Also the scene involving Chaplin and a cohort eating one of his shoes which is very funny and iconic. The master…
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It’s okay. I don’t think it’s among his best.
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Everything I know about comedy is a lie.
I grew up watching Warner Brothers and Tom & Jerry cartoons and just today I learned that they borrowed heavily from Charlie Chaplin. Everything I remembered so fondly was in this movie: The jokes, the music stings, everything.
It is nothing short of amazing to see how they did what they did almost 90 years ago. And it's even more amazing that I am able to watch such a classic on BluRay format crisp and fantastic like nobody could when it was released theatrically.
And don't forget that this is also a big piece of movie history. It shows the transition between silent movies and talkies by being shot silent and then narrated…
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dancing potatoes