BEFORE: I'm watching two films today and two again tomorrow, because my watchlist has not decreased in over a month - I was stuck at 153 for a long time, and now after doubling up a couple times, I'll be at an even 150. I do like round numbers - I realize the list will probably increase a bit while I'm on break, so getting the number down as low as possible before the break should be helpful. Chaplin carries over from "The Kid", for the 2nd of 5 of his classic films.
AFTER: More innovations in filmmaking tonight - you can see so many of the classic gags here that were later alluded to in countless "Looney Tunes" cartoons - like when characters are stranded on a deserted island or someplace where there is no food, and one looks at the other and sees a giant pork chop with his friend's face on it. That comes from here, where one hungry prospector looks at the Tramp and instead sees a giant edible chicken. Ah, the endless humor of potential cannibalism!
For the first half of the film, the Tramp (here called "The Lone Prospector") is stranded in a flimsy Yukon cabin with two men, one is another aspiring prospector and the other (as we find out later on) is a wanted man. There's not enough food in the cabin for three men, which makes me wonder how long the original cabin owner was planning to stay there. NOBODY planned ahead? Everyone just came north looking for gold, and not a single person brought food, apparently. Oh, one brought a dog, but fortunately none of them realized that the dog was made of meat.
(Chaplin's Tramp apparently headed north without a parka, either, or even an overcoat. I suppose he thought audiences might not recognize him if he was all covered up and they couldn't see his trademark waistcoat, but realistically, he wouldn't have lasted 10 seconds in the Yukon dressed like that.)
This leads to the classic scene where after one man is chosen to go get food, and Chaplin boils his boot for himself and the other man to eat. I suppose leather is essentially a cow's skin, so this doesn't really seem too outrageous, does it? And then before you know it, the craze caught on and thousands of hungry American movie-goers went home and ate their shoes - well, it was the Depression and all that. If flagpole-sitting and goldfish-swallowing were fads in the 1920's, I don't see why boot-eating didn't catch on in the 1930's.
The second half of the film takes place back in town, after the Tramp has mined perhaps a thimble-full of gold - tramps not being known for their work ethics, you know. He scams another cabin-owner out of breakfast, and this leads to a job minding the man's cabin while he's away. This allows him to go to the dance hall and get caught up in the complicated (for that time, anyway) relationship between Jack and Georgia. Jack's a ladies' man who has more women than he knows what to do with, while the Tramp barely knows what to do with one.
But the Tramp ends up entertaining Georgia and her three lady-friends on New Year's Eve, though it seems that for the girls this is something of a lark. Or are they just hanging out with him because he has a warm cabin and finally, some access to food? It's a bit unclear. But Georgia finds that's he's kept her picture ever since they danced together (while she was trying to make Jack jealous) and eventually this leads to romance in the end - which was innovative in itself, since Hollywood didn't decree that the hero always has to get the girl until 1937.
The other classic bit to watch for is Chaplin doing a little mock dance with two dinner rolls on the ends of forks, as if they're feet and legs. This was emulated by Johnny Depp's character in "Benny & Joon", but according to Anthony Bourdain's intro to this film on TCM, Chaplin himself nicked the idea from a Fatty Arbuckle film, "The Rough House", released 8 years earlier. Oh, and there's also the bit where two people are in a house teetering on the edge of a cliff, and various actions make the house get closer to falling - that's been replicated in a bunch of other films too.
Also starring Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Georgia Hale, Malcolm Waite.
RATING: 5 out of 10 dogsleds
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