Movie Review: The Gold Rush (1925 / 1942)

The Gold Rush

Note: This is #2 of my 52 Classic Movies in 52 Weeks challenge for 2009. Netflix sent me the 1942 re-release of the original 1925 movie, which included voice overs, music, and slightly different editing.

Having never seen a Charlie Chaplin movie before, I was only familiar with his “Little Tramp” character in so far as it had permeated popular culture –certainly a lot less in 2009 than in Chaplin’s heyday. I knew he was kind of a lovable sad sack, that he was played by Chaplin himself, and that he sported a signature cane and bowler hat. That was about it. The Gold Rush is supposed to be one of Chaplin’s best silent comedies in that series, telling the story of The Little Tramp (or “The Little Fellow” as Chaplin’s voice overs in the 1942 re-release call him) heading to the Alaska frontier to try his hand at prospecting for gold. There he runs afoul of an unscrupulous claim jumper, makes friends with another prospector, eats his shoe, and finds romance. Unlike last week’s Intolerance I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this one.

Specifically, it was funny. This was surprising because I expected the cultural gap between today and 1925 to neatly squash any humor that tried to make its way from Chaplin’s sensibilities to mine, but strangely I was wrong. It was a lot like being cracked up by some archaic joke that your grandpa tells you, and genuinely so. It wasn’t bust-a-gut funny, but I did laugh out loud several times and smiled a lot more.

What I came to realize is that most of the humor in The Gold Rush is physical, but not the kind of full-body physical slapstick akin to the Three Stooges. Instead, many of the laughs owe themselves to Chaplin’s precise, dexterous, and fluid execution of so many visual gags. It’s the way he walks, the way he lifts his hat in greeting, the way he savors a dish of boiled shoe, the way he sticks two forks in dinner rolls and makes them dance across the table (see below). There are also some great set pieces involving a tilting cabin that surprised me with both the simplicity and effectiveness of its special effects given the year it was made.

So, good stuff. I’ve got another Chaplin movie or two in my list, and I’m looking forward to it.

Others doing the 52-in-52 thing this week:

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4 thoughts on “Movie Review: The Gold Rush (1925 / 1942)

  1. You know, I’ve seen that clip before but not the whole thing. It *is* endearing. Also, it’s amazing to me how much Chaplin reminds me of Johnny Depp!

  2. What? My Depp comment wasn’t even *original*? Now I just feel derivative.
    Well, at least I got to type llama twice (three times).

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