Review of The Gold Rush (1925) by Sean F — 28 Aug 2004

We're in an age in which most people who claim to love movies are more aware of what Charlie Chaplin did, than have actually seen the films he left behind. Most people have seen his dinner roll dance, they've just seen Johnny Depp or Robert Downey, Jr.

do it. It's well-known that he ate a shoe made out of licorice, but have a lot of younger film-lovers actually seen him do it? How many people today have actually seen Chaplin and Mack Swain in a log cabin teetering on the edge of a cliff in context with the rest of the movie? Or the entire inspired sequence, for that matter? And how about the popular image of a starving man hallucinating another as a giant chicken? I was aware of all of these images before a recent first-ever viewing of "The Gold Rush", but I must admit the richness of context I was missing.

That dinner roll dance? He actually performs it in a dream. Chaplin's Tramp has fallen in love with a dance hall girl, and he doesn't feel able to interact with her. As he waits for her to arrive to a dinner she's neglecting, he falls asleep and dreams of being lovable and charming.

As for that scene in which he's eating the shoe, he's not the only one eating. Swain shares the shoe, but leaves the nails for Chaplin to lick like bones. And the scene with the cabin tottering over the cliff is a masterpiece of comedy and special effects.

An elaborate set was built that allowed the cabin to rock as Chaplin and Swain walked from one side to the other. In long shots we see the Tramp fall out of the cabin and save himself from death by hanging on to the door and swinging back inside.

I can't tell you how he did it. He also neatly pops onto safe land as the cabin finally does go over. That's nice film, even today. Oh, yeah, and the chicken hallucination. I don't know if the same joke appeared before 1925, but if it didn't that's just one more thing we need to give Chaplin credit for.

I feel fortunate for finally having received these images in context of the film as a whole. It just whets my desire for more Charlie Chaplin.