What it’s about
At the height of the 1898 Yukon gold rush, a Lone Prospector (Chaplin) treks through a forbidding snowy pass and winds up bunking in a tiny cabin with fellow miners Big Jim McClain (Swain) and murderous Black Larsen (Murray). The food is scarce, the bears are menacing, and the local dance-hall girl (Hale) just doesn’t seem to notice the smitten yet impoverished Prospector at least not until he inadvertently strikes it rich!
Why we love it
This brilliant Klondike comedy follows the antics of Chaplin's Little Tramp character through the trials and tribulations of frenzied fortune hunting in the Alaskan wilderness. In addition to the famous boiled-boot sequence, the visual gags are plentiful and hilarious, especially concerning the three prospectors' impending starvation (just watch Big Jim chase Chaplin around with an axe). But it's the bittersweet love story involving Hale's contemptuous saloon girl that makes “The Gold Rush” quintessentially Chaplinesque.