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The movie “The Gold Rush” was written and directed by Charlie Chaplin in 1925. Some of the main characters included Charlie Chaplin as The Lone Prospector, Mack Swain as Big Jim, Tom Murray as Black Larsen, Malcolm Waite as Jack, Georgia Hale as Georgia, and Henry Bergman as Hank. The movie is set in the 1920’s time period, the same period it was filmed in. The Gold Rush is a story about The Lone Prospector (Charlie) in search of gold. Through his travels in the snow, he comes upon a cabin.
In the cabin he meets Big Jim and Black Larsen. Big Jim is prospector like Charlie, where as Black Larsen is a fugitive hiding in the woods. After a few days of sharing the cabin and the food supply being non-existent they all become very hungry. Larsen sets out to go hunting, but of course does not come back for many days. The men become so desperate that the Lone Prospector cooks his boot for them to share. After the storm clears up, the men part ways, all in search of more gold.
Through his travels, Charlie comes upon a saloon. After doing some people watching, he is drawn to one of the saloon girls Georgia, and automatically falls in love with her, from afar of course. After the two do actually end up meeting and talking, Charlie invites her and her friends over for dinner on New Years Eve. When, it comes to dinner night, Georgia forgets all about it. Later on that evening, Big Jim comes back to town. He had remembered where a big gold mine was, but needed Charlie’s help in finding it.
The two set out in search of the gold, and do end up finding their stash, and becoming very rich. The theme of the movie puts a lightened approach to the gold rush days. With Charlie Chaplin’s humor and the peculiar characters he meets along the way make the movie even more enjoyable. Even though the Lone Prospector is the quiet and shy type who usually gets pushed around he life, he seems to come out on top in this one. No matter how many of the bumps he road he had to go through, he came to finish line in the end.