Rating: 
Summary: Please take off your boot, we're hungry
Review: "The Gold Rush" has been delighting audiences for almost 80 years -- it's one of the flat-out funniest films made in the silent era or any other. This is the movie Chaplin wanted to be remembered for.Like other films in the Chaplin Collection (at least so far) the "Gold Rush" enjoys across-the-board improvements in video and audio, including digital transfers from Chaplin family elements and Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes. Imaginative bonus features inform and entertain without wearing out their welcome. But this is Chaplin and so there is controversy. Image and Fox Home Entertainment felt the wrath of the faithful a few years back when they released Chaplin's audience-friendly 1942 sound version of the film, ignoring the classic all-silent film. MK2 and Warner didn't dare blow off the original, but their "Gold Rush" package relegates the 96-minute silent to disc 2, as an extra. The 1942 version gets the star treatment, taking up all of disc 1. It runs 69 minutes, as transformed by Chaplin when he recut the film, added narration and recorded an orchestral score. The 1942 edition will be more accessible to mainstream audiences, but it's a shame that most viewers will bypass the original, probably the grandest silent-movie entertainment of them all. (A new piano track by Neil Brand adds even more zest to the silent.) The Chaplin Collection's 1942 film looks great, with most of the wear digitally scrubbed out., but some videophiles will stay with Fox's 2001 release, which retains a bit more contrast and detail with the tradeoff of wear. The Warner silent sports a decent restoration job, from Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, but its images tend to be flat and inconsistent, with wear throughout. Warner's two versions are presented full-screen (1.33:1, as Chaplin intended), lacking a bit of picture information found on Fox's widow-boxed film, which runs 72-minutes. And the Warner silent employs some subtly different takes than the updated film. A half-hour MK2 TV documentary retells the tale of the production, which started in the Sierra Nevada before retreating to an elaborate set in L.A., where 100 barrels of flour stood in for mountain snow. The docu points out that Chaplin's humor frequently revolved around hunger, the curse of his childhood. "The Gold Rush's" comic tale of starving prospectors was based, in part, on the real-life horrors of the Donner party. The DVD includes rare outtakes of Big Jim the miner chasing his hallucinatory chicken (Chaplin) through the woods. The Chaplin Collection's next releases, due in early 2004, include "The Kid," "City Lights," "Monsieur Verdoux" and "The Circus." All but "Verdoux" are double-disc sets.
Rating:
Summary: A Moderate Warning
Review: "The Gold Rush" is a great film and Image entertainment/CBS Fox video have done Chaplin's 1942 reissue of it full justice in their DVD version just issued this month (May, 2000). The print was made from a full-aperture negative found in Chaplin's own vault, and the image quality is stunning. I have never seen the film look so good, neither in 35mm prints shown in theatres, nor on any previous video version (most are almost unwatchable). And I do not dispute the relevance and importance of preserving, and of making this version, which includes a soundtrack of Chaplin's own musical score plus spoken narration, available to those of us who love the film, and to posterity. But why in the world have the producers of this DVD chosen to issue this version rather than the 1925 original? Surely, with the technology available to the makers, it would have been possible to restore the fifty-seven feet that Chaplin trimmed from it for his reissue (and available in numerous prints, if not in Chaplin's vault), replace the missing intertitle cards, remove the narration, and still include Chaplin's lovely score! This DVD is being offered, after all, as the official version of the film, part of a series of Chaplin's greatest work; it should have provided us the original film as it was meant to be seen in the silent era. We can understand Chaplin's nervousness in offering a fully silent film to a 1942 audience. But this is 2000 and it seems to me that most people who purchase silent films do so because they love them and would prefer not to have the action narrated, even by the film's maker. The narration is, for the most part, irritating, and intrudes itself upon the magical silent world of the film. Whatever Chaplin's motivations for tampering with his film in this manner were, we ought to have been given the film in its original form; perhaps both versions could have been offered on the same disc - that is surely not beyond the capabilities of the dvd medium! To conclude: I was disappointed when I received this dvd and remain so, even though the visual quality is gratifying. I don't mind owning a copy of this version but I wanted a restored version of the SILENT "Gold Rush" and I have no doubt there are others like me. So let the buyer beware; this is not "The Gold Rush," it is a footnote to it.
Rating:
Summary: A Moderate Warning
Review: "The Gold Rush" is a great film and Image entertainment/CBS Fox video have done Chaplin's 1942 reissue of it full justice in their DVD version just issued this month (May, 2000). The print was made from a full-aperture negative found in Chaplin's own vault, and the image quality is stunning. I have never seen the film look so good, neither in 35mm prints shown in theatres, nor on any previous video version (most are almost unwatchable). And I do not dispute the relevance and importance of preserving, and of making this version, which includes a soundtrack of Chaplin's own musical score plus spoken narration, available to those of us who love the film, and to posterity. But why in the world have the producers of this DVD chosen to issue this version rather than the 1925 original? Surely, with the technology available to the makers, it would have been possible to restore the fifty-seven feet that Chaplin trimmed from it for his reissue (and available in numerous prints, if not in Chaplin's vault), replace the missing intertitle cards, remove the narration, and still include Chaplin's lovely score! This DVD is being offered, after all, as the official version of the film, part of a series of Chaplin's greatest work; it should have provided us the original film as it was meant to be seen in the silent era. We can understand Chaplin's nervousness in offering a fully silent film to a 1942 audience. But this is 2000 and it seems to me that most people who purchase silent films do so because they love them and would prefer not to have the action narrated, even by the film's maker. The narration is, for the most part, irritating, and intrudes itself upon the magical silent world of the film. Whatever Chaplin's motivations for tampering with his film in this manner were, we ought to have been given the film in its original form; perhaps both versions could have been offered on the same disc - that is surely not beyond the capabilities of the dvd medium! To conclude: I was disappointed when I received this dvd and remain so, even though the visual quality is gratifying. I don't mind owning a copy of this version but I wanted a restored version of the SILENT "Gold Rush" and I have no doubt there are others like me. So let the buyer beware; this is not "The Gold Rush," it is a footnote to it.
Rating: 
Summary: Chaplin's Best Movie
Review: "The Gold Rush" is Charlie Chaplin's best movie. It has some terrific comic set pieces (the dinner roll dance, the cabin teetering over a cliff) as well as some well-executed pathos. Chaplin himself is at top form here, and the production values and special effects are very good (at least by 1925 standards).
This movie has not seen a better home video release than here. This two-disc DVD includes Chaplin's revised 1942 version, with some snipped scenes and, regrettably, Chaplin's narration. The second disc contains the original 1925 version with a pretty good new musical score. The 1942 cut looks absolutely beautiful. The 1925 version is a little scratchier, but it still looks as good as possible.
All of the extras are on the second disc. Like other films in this series ("Limelight," "Great Dictator," "Modern Times"), there is a good introduction by David Robinson, a Chaplin biographer, as well as a "Chaplin Today" documentary. The documentary is quite good. It contains vintage interviews with leading-lady Georgia Hale and Lita Gray, one of Chaplin's wives, as well as some comments from filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraoge. Also included are an enormous amount of photos, as well as posters, trailers, and some scenes from other Chaplin films.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific! Funny and heartwarming
Review: A wonderful little movie, as are all of Chaplin's. I laughed till I cried. And for $3.24, how can you go wrong??!
Rating:
Summary: Five stars, please!
Review: Amazons "average customers review" of 4 stars is an average for 3 DIFFERENT editions of this great, GREAT film:
1) A very poor, Public Domain reprint of the 1925 edition from Digital Disc Entertainment; got around 2 stars.
2) A fine reprint of the 1942 edition from Image. All complaints about this DVD were about the missing of the 1925 edition.
3) This ultimate edition from Warner and MK2. Disc 1 include the 1942 edition, disc 2 include the 1925 edition and a lot of extra material. Both versions are restored and of surprisingly high quality!
This edition surely deserve FIVE STARS. Please DON'T include the ratings for other editions!
Rating:
Summary: I LIKE THIS VERSION BEST !
Review: Besides being a classic comedy which we all agree on, I personally like the narration and the musical score which Chaplin added to this,the 1942 version,and in my opinion they enhance the original. After all, he was the genius and I think he knew what he was doing better than anyone. Thank you Charlie !
Rating:
Summary: Chaplin's Version
Review: By now, the enormous production problems surrounding The Gold Rush have become the stuff of legend (75 years later!). And yet, Chaplin edited the film for its theatrical re-release and added a musical score and narration. What the soundtrack reveals is Chaplin's true tragic flaw as writer/producer/director. What he always needed in his later films was a good producer/editor to recognize what was great in his work and what was merely playing lip-service to a new medium. We now know that silent films were so much more than films without a sound-dimension. The greatest silent films had no need at all with music or narration to hold an imaginative viewer's attention. The concentration required to make and to watch a silent film has, of course, been lost to audiences accustomed to the naturalism - and literalism - of sound films. This is what worried Chaplin - that sound film had left him behind and that no one could enjoy one of his silent masterpieces without attempts to jazz up the material with music and narration (which, in this film, are often cloying). Show a little more respect for silent films, please!
Rating:
Summary: Charmingly witty
Review: Charlie Chaplin is a comic genius and brings his wit to bear in this classic of the Alaskan gold rush. His expressive style shows how far acting can carry a movie that has no sound. His oft-repeated "table dance" using forks stuck into two potatoes is a scene that truly styles Chaplin's wide-ranging comical creativity.
Rating: 
Summary: "Fate guided them to a spot where all was calm."
Review: Charlie Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" is a mixed bag. The film itself is uneven as it entertaining for certain stretches and just adequate in others. Yet the general public as a whole still owe it a measure of thanks for its contribution of the wonderful "dancing bread rolls" sequence to cinema lore. Playing with one's food was never so visually amusing. The Tramp (Chaplin) tries his luck at prospecting for gold but finds himself being harassed by the nasty weather, a criminal on the loose named Black Larson (Tom Murray), and a desperate and hungry man named Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain). Failing to strike it rich despite his best efforts, The Tramp treks to a nearby village to start over. A village woman named Georgia (Georgia Hale) catches his eye and soon The Tramp is using all the resources at his disposal to prepare a memorable New Year's Eve dinner for her. In the pantheon of Chaplin works, "The Gold Rush" ranks behind "City Lights" (1931), and "The Great Dictator" (1940), and is generally on par with "Modern Times" (1936). In other words, this film is a serviceable Chaplin vehicle but nothing more than that. The silent comedian is his usual charming self from the moment he first appears and he marvelously displays that impeccable comic timing that made him so great at physical comedy in every routine he finds himself in. But "The Gold Rush" flounders because the material he is working with this time around is not that strong. The pathos and social relevance that define Chaplin's better efforts are in shorter supply here and the film suffers for it.
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