page_title: Charlie Chaplin
section_title: A Woman of Paris and The Gold Rush
hierarchical_section_title: Charlie Chaplin / Biography / 1923–1938: Silent features / A Woman of Paris and The Gold Rush
caption_attribution_description: Cropped publicity still for Charlie Chaplin's 1925 film The Gold Rush. The stock code in the left hand corner of the original confirms that this was a publicity still. Such images were taken on set during filming, or as part of an organized photo-shoot, by a studio photographer. They were then disseminated to the media and the public to promote the film (see Film still). Public domain explanation It is unlikely that this image was secured with copyright protection, as stated by film industry expert Gerald Mast in Film Study and the Copyright Law (1989) p. 87: "According to the old copyright act, such production stills were not automatically copyrighted as part of the film and required separate copyrights as photographic stills ... Most studios have never bothered to copyright these stills because they were happy to see them pass into the public domain, to be used by as many people in as many publications as possible." If there is any chance that the photograph was copyrighted, under the terms of the 1909 Copyright Act (which was law until 1978) it would have had to be renewed 28 years after publication. Copyright renewal records for artwork in 1953 find no trace of any images from The Gold Rush: [1] [2]
context_page_description: Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin KBE was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, "The Tramp", and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.
  Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship, as his father was absent and his mother struggled financially, and he was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, which took him to America. He was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon developed the Tramp persona and formed a large fan base. He directed his own films and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations.
context_section_description: Having fulfilled his First National contract, Chaplin was free to make his first picture as an independent producer. In November 1922, he began filming A Woman of Paris, a romantic drama about ill-fated lovers. Chaplin intended it to be a star-making vehicle for Edna Purviance, and did not appear in the picture himself other than in a brief, uncredited cameo. He wished the film to have a realistic feel and directed his cast to give restrained performances. In real life, he explained, "men and women try to hide their emotions rather than seek to express them". A Woman of Paris premiered in September 1923 and was acclaimed for its innovative, subtle approach. The public, however, seemed to have little interest in a Chaplin film without Chaplin, and it was a box office disappointment. The filmmaker was hurt by this failure – he had long wanted to produce a dramatic film and was proud of the result – and soon withdrew A Woman of Paris from circulation.
  Chaplin returned to comedy for his next project. Setting his standards high, he told himself "This next film must be an epic! The Greatest!" Inspired by a photograph of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, and later the story of the Donner Party of 1846–1847, he made what Geoffrey Macnab calls "an epic comedy out of grim subject matter." In The Gold Rush, the Tramp is a lonely prospector fighting adversity and looking for love. With Georgia Hale as his leading lady, Chaplin began filming the picture in February 1924. Its elaborate production, costing almost $1 million, included location shooting in the Truckee mountains in Nevada with 600 extras, extravagant sets, and special effects. The last scene was shot in May 1925 after 15 months of filming.
  Chaplin felt The Gold Rush was the best film he had made. It opened in August 1925 and became one of the highest-grossing films of the silent era with a U.S. box-office of $5 million. The comedy contains some of Chaplin's most famous sequences, such as the Tramp eating his shoe and the "Dance of the Rolls". Macnab has called it "the quintessential Chaplin film". Chaplin stated at its release, "This is the picture that I want to be remembered by".
caption: The Tramp resorts to eating his boot in a famous scene from The Gold Rush (1925).
exif: {}