The Gold Rush

Movie: The Gold Rush (1925)

AFI List #74 on the 1998 list and 58 on the 2007

My List #36

Starring: Charlie Chaplin

My rating: ˜˜˜˜

This was another of Charlie Chaplin's "Little Tramp" films. This one has the Tramp traveling to Alaska to take part in the Alaska Gold Rush. He gets stranded in a cabin with a prospector and an escaped villain. The prospector has found a large gold mine and he and the escaped fugitive fight over the claim and the prospector gets hit over the head and the fugitive falls off a cliff.

The Tramp eventually makes it a gold rush town where he finally decides to give up prospecting. He helps another prospector just by looking after his cabin. While he's there he falls in love with a saloon girl and thinks that she likes him back. Soon after the first prospector comes back with amnesia (he was hit in the head, remember) and needs the Tramp's help in finding his gold mine again. They are able to find it and they both get very rich.

There are two scenes that I loved. The first was at the beginning when they were all stranded. The Tramp cooks up a shoe and they eat it, but all properly. Even twirling the shoe laces like spaghetti. The other time, when the Tramp is helping the prospector find his mine, they start in a house that gets blown away by a storm, and when they wake up, the house is half over a cliff. The time, effort and antics to get out of the house without falling was hilarious.

Charlie Chaplin has said that this was the film for which he wanted to be remembered. However, I think I personally liked City Lights and Modern Times better. In that order too, I think I'll rank City Lights as my favorite Chaplin film that I've seen.