The Gold Rush

The Gold Rush (1925) is Charlie Chaplin's silent comedy that you can watch online on iFILM. Chaplin directed, wrote the script and starred as his Little Tramp, this time stranded in the frozen wilds of Alaska.

The Tramp drifts among prospectors at the height of the Klondike gold rush. A blizzard traps him in a cabin with the hulking Big Jim (Mack Swain) and a wanted outlaw, and hunger pushes the men so far that they boil and eat a boot. Down in a rowdy mining town the Tramp falls for a dance hall girl named Georgia (Georgia Hale), who barely looks his way. Two of cinema's most quoted gags live here: the dance of the bread rolls on forks, and a cabin teetering on the lip of a cliff.

Chaplin himself said this was the film he wanted to be remembered by. In 1942 he re-edited it and added his own narration. The Gold Rush was among the early titles chosen for the United States National Film Registry as a cultural landmark. Starvation and poverty have rarely been this funny and this tender at once. Stream The Gold Rush (1925) online on iFILM.