Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Gold Rush (1925)

Among the most beloved of Charles Chaplin’s films is this tale of the Little Tramp as a gold prospector in the frozen Yukon.

Thanks partially to the film’s status as a public-domain film in the USA, collectors could easily obtain home video editions of the film during the 1980s and 1990s (although usually in substandard editions prepared from 16mm reduction prints), and the film became popular and recognizable among comedy fans even marginally aware of Chaplin’s work.

— Carl Bennett

This Blu-ray Disc edition features a recently-completed digital HD restoration of the 1942 sound version, presented with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray Disc, and a new 2K digital video transfer of the original 1925 silent version, restored in 1993 by Photoplay Productions in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna, with a newly-recorded adaptation of Chaplin’s own score. The 1925 version has never looked this good on home video before although it is still not as sharp as the 1942 rerelease version.

The 1925 film is accompanied by a 2011 recording of the 2007 music score adapted by Timothy Brock from Chaplin’s 1942 score presented in DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound.

The supplemental material includes Presenting The Gold Rush, a documentary featurette with interviews with Kevin Brownlow and Jeffrey Vance covering the 1993 restoration of the 1925 version from multiple 35mm film materials (16 minutes); Chaplin Today: The Gold Rush a 2002 documentary on the production of the film and its influence on modern filmmakers (27 minutes); A Time of Innovation: Visual Effects in The Gold Rush, an interview with Craig Barron on the technical effects of The Gold Rush, which include a brief audio recording of cameraman Rollie Totheroh on Chaplin’s inspiration for the film and the special effects (19 minutes); Music by Charles Chaplin features an interview with composed Timothy Brock on the compositions of Chaplin and the recordings of the score for the 1925 restoration version (25 minutes); and four theatrical film trailers prepared for latterday rereleases of the film in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands (9 minutes).

This Blu-ray Disc is the best available home video edition of The Gold Rush.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Likely to be the best DVD edition of The Gold Rush available.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

The film is presented with the established music score composed by Charles Chaplin.

The disc’s supplemental material includes an introduction by David Robinson.

Other than its HD transfer, and this edition being nearly identical in content to the 2004 Warner Home Video edition noted below, owners of that edition may not feel the need to acquire this Park Circus edition. This edition, currently the only high-quality edition in print, is recommended for those who want to add the film to their collection now.

North American collectors will need a Region B or region-free Blu-ray Disc player and/or a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click to purchase this Region B Blu-ray Disc / Region 2 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk.

Our first glimpse of this two-disc set is favorable in regards to the 1942 version of The Gold Rush, with its nearly pristene picture. But we are indifferent to the reconstruction of the 1925 version, produced years ago by Photoplay Productions in the UK, which doesn’t look much better than quality home video editions on lasersdisc and VHS videotape. The 1925 restoration has the moderately good qualities of previous editions, those being a slightly constrasty and soft picture that looks as though it has been transferred from 35mm duplicate prints that are two or more generations away from the original negative.

The 1942 rerelease edition fares quite a bit better, having been digitally restored from original 35mm elements held by the Chaplin family — materials that were previously utilized by David Shepard for the CBS/Fox laserdisc and DVD edition noted below.

That being said, we have had problems with the disc displaying properly to a 16:9 high-definition television when played from one of our DVD players. The picture fills the 16:9 monitor in width (already wrong for a 4:3 format picture) and crops the top and bottom of the picture to do so. No amount of manipulation of the picture settings ideally resolves the issue.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

This long out-of-print DVD edition of The Gold Rush was transferred from materials previously held by Charles Chaplin; the sound reissue version originally rereleased in 1942. All intertitles were removed and replaced with spoken narration by Chaplin. Some collectors have objected to Chaplin’s altered version of the film, especially its truncated ending and running time. We say that there are editions of both the original 1925 release and this 1942 reissue to be seen and collected on home video. Criterion/Voyager released a very-good edition of the 1925 version on laserdisc in 1991.

This edition of the sound reissue version, which has its own charms (Chaplin’s narration) and qualities (a fine video transfer, with open framing), includes a supplementary section with an interview with Chaplin’s wife Lita Grey Chaplin, an original scenario by Chaplin entitled “The Lucky Strike: A Play in Two Scenes,” the basis for The Gold Rush, a timed slideshow of production document images, and a gallery of production stills (47 images).

The film picture is sharper in later editions digitally scanned at high-resolution than this edition from an analog video transfer prepared in the 1990s for laserdisc by David Shepard. More of value today for the supplemental materials instead of for the presentation of the film itself, used copies can occasionally still be found.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

We have no indication as to the quality of this edition of the film, and cannot recommend it at this time.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

NOSTALGIA FAMILY VIDEO has discontinued business and this DVD-R edition is . . .

Don’t count on the quality of the film prints being very high.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

With a lower image resolution than DVD, it is also likely to be the worst production of all editions. We suspect that this low-budget production was transferred from a 16mm reduction print.

This NTSC VideoCD edition is . . .