The Gold Rush

Upon its release in June 1925, The Gold Rush was accompanied by a wealth of anecdotes: In some European theatres, projectionists were forced to rewind the reel to satisfy delirious audiences’ demands for an encore of the “bread roll dance”. In the early 1940s Chaplin decided to replace the original intertitles with a narrated commentary, he also changed the editing and shortened the ending. When the film was re-released in May 1942, few people understood the changes. However, the newly orchestrated score represented one of the expressive highpoints in his career as a composer.

In the 1990s, Kevin Brownlow and David Gill undertook a complex reconstruction of the silent version. ‘The Gold Rush isn’t the only film for which Charlie Chaplin is remembered, but without doubt the decision to take The Tramp to the roots (or the precipice) of American mythology, to place his solitary figure against the snowy backdrop of the birth of a nation, makes it a work of unsurpassed, dizzying intensity.’ (Cecilia Cenciarelli, Il Cinema ritrovato)