Have you ever seen a cartoon or anything in which a character is very hungry, and imagines their companion is a large-sized chicken or other food, out of hunger delirium? Well, that cliche comes from Charlie Chaplin's 1925 silent comedy "The Gold Rush."I realize that I made an error a few posts back when I discussed Buster Keaton's "The General." I said that I had never seen a silent movie before, but that was a lie; I watched "The Gold Rush" when I was 14 years old, the first time I tried to make my way through this list. So apologies, not that you really cared in the first place.
This movie is hilarious and groundbreaking, but all I could think about while it was playing was the degree of fame Chaplin attained through silent films. He was voted #10 in AFI's list of male screen legends, yet very few know what his voice actually sounded like. Now that is a star.
Other than that, I don't really have that much to say about the movie. The story was simple and engaging, and it was interesting to see all of the conventions that are familiar to us that obviously originated in this movie. Altogether, the movie was funny but boring. It lasted 82 minutes, but probably would have been better to last only an hour. No matter what, though, it's still a classic that set in motion a lot of cliches we are still using today.
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