Charles Chaplin

The Gold Rush

The Gold Rush

Charlie Chaplin’s comedic masterwork—which charts a prospector’s search for fortune in the Klondike and his discovery of romance (with the beautiful Georgia Hale)—forever cemented the iconic status of Chaplin and his Little Tramp character. Shot partly on location in the Sierra Nevadas and featuring such timeless gags as the dance of the dinner rolls and the meal of boiled shoe leather, The Gold Rush is an indelible work of heartwarming hilarity. This special edition features both Chaplin’s definitive 1942 version, for which the director added new music and narration, and a new restoration of the original 1925 silent film.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1942
  • 72 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • English
  • Spine #615

Special Features

  • New high-definition digital restoration of the 1942 sound version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
  • New 2K digital transfer of the reconstructed original 1925 silent film, restored in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna, with a newly recorded adaptation of director Charlie Chaplin’s score, presented in 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
  • New audio commentary for the 1925 version by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance
  • Three new programs: Presenting “The Gold Rush,” which traces the film’s history and features filmmaker Kevin Brownlow and Vance; A Time of Innovation: Visual Effects in “The Gold Rush,” featuring effects specialist Craig Barron and Chaplin cinematographer Roland Totheroh; and Music by Charles Chaplin, featuring conductor and composer Timothy Brock
  • Chaplin Today: “The Gold Rush” (2002), a short documentary featuring filmmaker Idrissa Ouédraogo
  • Four trailers
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A new essay by critic Lucy Sante and James Agee’s review of the 1942 rerelease

    New cover by Patrick Leger

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New high-definition digital restoration of the 1942 sound version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
  • New 2K digital transfer of the reconstructed original 1925 silent film, restored in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna, with a newly recorded adaptation of director Charlie Chaplin’s score, presented in 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
  • New audio commentary for the 1925 version by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance
  • Three new programs: Presenting “The Gold Rush,” which traces the film’s history and features filmmaker Kevin Brownlow and Vance; A Time of Innovation: Visual Effects in “The Gold Rush,” featuring effects specialist Craig Barron and Chaplin cinematographer Roland Totheroh; and Music by Charles Chaplin, featuring conductor and composer Timothy Brock
  • Chaplin Today: “The Gold Rush” (2002), a short documentary featuring filmmaker Idrissa Ouédraogo
  • Four trailers
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: A new essay by critic Lucy Sante and James Agee’s review of the 1942 rerelease

    New cover by Patrick Leger
The Gold Rush
Cast
Charles Chaplin
The Lone Prospector
Mack Swain
Big Jim McKay
Tom Murray
Black Larsen
Henry Bergman
Hank Curtis
Malcolm Waite
Jack Cameron
Georgia Hale
Georgia
Betty Morrissey
Georgia's friends
Joan Lowell
Kay Deslys
Stanley "Tiny" Sandford
Barman
Credits
Director
Charles Chaplin
Written by
Charles Chaplin
Original music by
Charles Chaplin
Musical director
Max Terr
Director of photography
Roland Totheroh
Production design
Charles D. Hall
Narration written and spoken by
Charles Chaplin
Film editors
Charles Chaplin
Film editors
Harold E. McGhan
Editorial supervisor
Edward Manson
Production manager
Alfred Reeves
Sound editors
Harold E. McGhan
Sound recordists
Pete Decker
Sound recordists
W. M. Dalgleish
Sound editors
James L. Fields
Assistant directors
Henri D'Abbadie D'Arrast
Assistant directors
A. Edward Sutherland
Associate director
Charles Reisner
Camera operators
Mark Marlatt
Camera operators
Jack Wilson
Painters
Peter Stitch
Painters
Mr. Wood
Script supervisor
Della Steele
Bear wrangler
Bud White
Dedicated to
Alexander Woollcott

Current

Special Effects in The Gold Rush
Special Effects in The Gold Rush
Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush isn’t notable just for its timeless gags; it’s also a superbly designed film with impressive sets and special effects. For a supplemental feature in our new edition of the film, we interviewed effects specialist …
The Gold Rush: As Good as Gold
The Gold Rush: As Good as Gold

Charlie Chaplin’s transcendent, visionary comedy is made up of one iconic moment after another.

By Lucy Sante

Dancing Chaplin

Anatomy of a Gag

Dancing Chaplin

In some of his most elaborately choreographed set pieces, the silent-comedy master confronted the chaos of the world with balletic grace and rhythmic precision.

By David Cairns

Tracy Letts’s Top 10
Tracy Letts’s Top 10

Tracy Letts is an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. He received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for drama for August: Osage County and a Tony Award for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Timothy Brock on Restoring Charlie Chaplin’s Sound
Timothy Brock on Restoring Charlie Chaplin’s Sound

During the conductor and composer’s visit—a day after he’d led the New York Philharmonic in a live orchestral performance of the score to City Lights—we talked about his love for early cinema, the delicate process of restoring Chaplin’s mus

By Hillary Weston