Matthew Solomon - The Gold Rush

BFI Film Classics

The BFI Film Classics is a series of books that introduces, interprets and celebrates landmarks of world cinema. Each volume offers an argument for the films classic status, together with discussion of its production and reception history, its place within a genre or national cinema, an account of its technical and aesthetic importance, and in many cases, the authors personal response to the film.

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Editorial Advisory Board

Geoff Andrew, British Film Institute

Edward Buscombe

William Germano, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

Lalitha Gopalan, University of Texas at Austin

Lee Grieveson, University College London

Nick James, Editor, Sight & Sound

Laura Mulvey, Birkbeck College, University of London

Alastair Phillips, University of Warwick

Dana Polan, New York University

B. Ruby Rich, University of California, Santa Cruz

Amy Villarejo, Cornell University

The Gold Rush

Matthew Solomon

Eddie Manson, Chaplin and Rollie Totheroh on location, 1924, Roy Export Company Establishment

Matthew Solomon 2015

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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First published in 2015 by

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on behalf of the

BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE

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Series cover design: Ashley Western

Series text design: ketchup/SE14

Images from The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925), Roy Export S.A.S.; The Rough House (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1918), Comique Film Corporation; The Kid (Charles Chaplin, 1921), Roy Export S.A.S.; City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931), Roy Export S.A.S.; The Blackbird (Tod Browning, 1926), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Corporation; Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936), Roy Export S.A.S.; The Pawnshop (Charles Chaplin, 1916), Mutual Film Corporation; The Sea Gull (Josef von Sternberg, 1926), Roy Export Company Establishment.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 9781844576401

Acknowledgments

I have wanted to write one of these books ever since I read Peter Wollens contribution to the BFI Film Classics series. I am grateful to the editorial advisory board for the series and Rebecca Barden for the opportunity. Several BFI Film Classics authors generously provided counsel I am especially appreciative of supportive exchanges with James Naremore, Charles Maland and Sarah Kozloff. The comments I received from the anonymous review process were uniformly helpful. My sincere thanks also go to Jenna Steventon, Lucy Knight, Sophia Contento and Chantal Latchford, who helped prepare and publish the book.

Ben Strassfeld compiled much research for this volume while serving as a consistently helpful interlocutor during the process of research and writing; he travelled with me down the rabbit hole of multiple versions and into the thickets of copyright law with no hesitation. David Mayer directed me to nineteenth-century theatre sources and made possible the reproduction of a poster from his collection. The week I spent at the Cineteca di Bolognas Biblioteca Renzo Renzi viewing documents digitised from the Chaplin Archive proved to be the most memorable part of this project. Thank you to Cecilia Cenciarelli, Monia Malaguti, Andrea Dresseno and Cesare Ballardini for making my time in Bologna both productive and pleasant. I am also grateful to the Association Chaplin for permission to quote from documents in the Chaplin Archive and to reproduce images protected by copyright; Kate Guyonvarch and Arnold Lozano were extremely helpful and gracious in facilitating this process. Two multilingual research assistants, Amanda Getty and Yuki Nakayama, found a lot of interesting material, though most of it did not make it into the book in the end; Nic Heckner translated German sources. Writing this monograph was enriched by conversations with University of Michigan colleagues Richard Abel, Giorgio Bertellini, Hugh Cohen, Caryl Flinn, Phil Hallman, Dan Herbert, Johannes von Moltke, Markus Nornes and John Whittier-Ferguson. Gillian Anderson, Alice Artzt, Jennifer Bean, Alice Birney, Andre Blay, Kevin Brownlow, Nico de Klerk, Paul Duncan, Scott Eyman, E. Hunter Hale, Charlie Johnston, Bruce Kirby, Kristine Krueger, Bruce Lawton, Vincent Longo, Luke McKernan, Liam Meisner-Driscoll, Page Miller, Wyatt Phillips, Mark Sandberg, Eli Savada, Melvyn Stokes, Yuri Tsivian, Jeffrey Vance and Roberto Vezzani each responded graciously and informatively to my requests and my queries. Any deficiencies of the book are of course mine.

For Margot.

Photograph by Jennifer Chapman, 2013

The Gold Rush 1925 poster, Roy Export S.A.S., from the poster collection of the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences