28: The Gold Rush

USA  72m  Dir: Charlie Chaplin 

Original Screenplay

Charlie Chaplin said that he'd like to be remembered for The Gold Rush. If ever there was a person that is remembered for a body of work though it's Chaplin. Why was he so proud of this film above all his others? 

Well, I think it's perhaps because in terms of film-making, this is his best film. It opens with a recreation of the gold rush in Alaska. Chaplin how whole sets built and used a huge number of extras to faithfully recreate scenes from the gold rush. It looks utterly incredible and it's certainly the most ambitious few scenes I've seen in silent films in terms of scale. 

The films continues to be ambitious, with several scenes in a dance hall crowded with people and a climax that involves a wooden hut pivoting on the edge of a cliff. Whilst the exterior was done using model-work I couldn't quite work out how much of the interior work was done using clever sets and how much was just good acting. There's no question that in terms of technique this is Chaplin's best film. 

Despite all this, I didn't enjoy it as much as other works like City Lights and Modern Times. That's because this is more of an adventure story than comedy. Sure, there are plenty of funny moments from eating a shoe to turning into a chicken in the eyes of a hungry prospector. Here though Chaplin's little tramp is more tragic than ever, a lone prospector seeking his fortune who is not prepared for the conditions. Yet at the same time the film lacks the melancholy of other Chaplin works because this is a rare case where the tramp succeeds. 

The middle section features a long love story between the tramp and a woman called Georgia. In other Chaplin works the love interest normally has her own tragedy but Georgia is a happy woman with lots of friends and an athletic potential boyfriend. She treats him appallingly and you wonder why he doesn't just give up on her. I just didn't find it a convincing love story in the same way as other Chaplin films. Worst of all, I felt these scenes dragged on for too long and could have been edited down to make the film run more smoothly. 

When I think of Charlie Chaplin, The Gold Rush is not going to be the film I think of him for. It's perhaps his best technically but narratively and comedically he made better films.