The Gold Rush ( 1925 )

A lone prospector ventures into Alaska looking for gold. He gets mixed up with some burly characters and falls in love with the beautiful Georgia. He tries to win her heart with his singular charm.

Was voted the 15th Greatest Film of all time by Entertainment Weekly....

The 2,500 men playing prospectors were real vagrants who were hired for one day's pay.


There was 27 times more film shot than appeared in the final cut.


The only location shot used in the final cut of the film is opening shot of the miners heading up Chilkoot Pass.


The scene where The Lone Prospector and Big Jim have a boot for supper took three days and 63 takes to suit director Charles Chaplin. The boot was made of licorice, and Chaplin was later rushed to hospital suffering insulin shock.


This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress, in 1992.


The part of Georgia (the showgirl) was originally written for Chaplin's new wife Lita Grey, but she was replaced by Georgia Hale when she became pregnant.


The "dancing rolls" sequence was so popular with audiences that, in some cases (such as the film's Berlin premiere), projectionists stopped the film and replayed the scene.


The only Charles Chaplin silent comedy in which he began to shoot with a story fully worked out.


The first of Charles Chaplin's silent films which he revived with the addition of sound for new audiences.


Was voted the 15th Greatest Film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.


Originally a stagehand wore the chicken suit from Jim's hallucination. But when he couldn't mime Charles Chaplin's walk and manners, Chaplin himself donned the suit.


A real American Black Bear was used for the scene where the "Lone Prospector" encounters the beast. This was unusual for the time, when it was normal for very phoney-looking costumed men to play large animals.


This movie was re-released in theaters in 1943 with a new musical score by Max Terr. The new release of the film received two Oscar nominations in 1944 - for Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and (ironically) for Best Sound.


In his autobiography, Charles Chaplin revealed he had the idea for this film at Pickfair, the home of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. Indeed, his two friends and associates were showing him pictures of Alaska and Klondike. One of them was picturing prospectors climbing the Chilkoot col, which gave Chaplin the subject of his next movie.


According to the Travel Channel, the shoes that Chaplin eats in the movie were made of licorice.


At the time of filming, Charles Chaplin and Georgia Hale were having an affair, so that when their finale's lingering kiss was filmed, it was (according to Hale in Unknown Chaplin [1983]) "not acting". By the time the movie was re-issued in 1942, Chaplin was long done with Hale, and he trimmed their final scene to exclude the long kiss.


When shot silent, the film would utilize the entire image area available measuring 1.33:1. When reissued in 1942 with sound the sound strip was overlaid over the left part of the film, and the top and bottom were cropped as well to maintain the 1.37:1 academy ratio resulting in sometimes awkward image composition. This can be seen on the Warner DVD releases of the reissue, while the previous Image entertainment disc was mastered from the full silent aperture negative and does not contain the cropping.


One of the best Chaplin movies, which means one of the best movies ever made. Good structure and a lot of excellent classic scenes such as `Eating the shoe' and `The Roll Dance'.