Spine 615: The Gold Rush

Lost in Criterion

In 1925 Charlie Chaplin released the highest grossing silent film of all time, The Gold Rush, a tale of desperate men fighting the harsh elements to chase the American Dream: getting rich through extractive capitalism. Chaplin is certainly capable of political film (see The Great Dictator or Modern Times) but also the Tramp is a political character, an impoverished victim of capitalism who survives by getting one over on authorities every so often. So is this a celebration of the American spirit? Or a condemnation of the system of social murder that cannibalizes it's most desperate citizens like so many Donner parties, promising riches while sending them into a frozen hell? I don't know, it's just a funny movie.

The Criterion release contains a composite of the 1925 version, reconstructed and rescored, and also Chaplin's own 1942 recut, where he added narration and trimmed what he considered excessive bits: primarily as much of the romance plot as possible since 17 years later he was no longer having an affair with the female lead, Georgia Hale.