THE GOLD RUSH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 943, 6 September 1957, Page 20

THE GOLD RUSH

(Chaplin-United Artists) G Cert. TO class a Chaplin film as anything less than alpha-plus is a judgment so unorthodox-even heretical-as to require either immediate amplification or recantation. And I shan’t recant. I can, however, perhaps save myself from Investigation by pointing out that the causes of my dissatisfaction lie not in

the film itself, but in the manner of its current re-presentation. I found it constantly disturbing to observe the Procrustean mutilation of the original print in accommodating it to the wide screen. The Gold Rush (naturally) was shot in the old standard frame, and enlargement to the width of the new screen has meant that a frequently critical segment of the vertical area has been cropped short-and when you recall that not a little of Chaplin’s comedy business occurs near the bottom of the frame you will understand that there were times when the possibility of irreparable damage came too close for one’s peace of mind, Two classic passagesthe episode in which Charlie and Big Jim, starving in a prospector’s hut in the Klondyke, dine on one of Charlie’s boots; and that other gem of comic invention, the ballet of the bread-rolls-escaped disaster by what looked like a hair’s breadth. And I suspect that some hand or foot work here or there may have been lost altogether. And I can’t in honesty approve of the commentary which Charles Chaplin added to this edition of the work. Charlie hardly needed _ sub-titles. To offer more than that seems as sensible as reintroducing the» three-line joke, while in the film’s sentimental passages the mood is too fragile to support the spoken word. But with these objections recorded, it was ood to have Charlie back again, good to ear youngsters who had perhaps not seen him before laugh as heartily as the old hands. I have often enough at the quality of term-holiday screenings, but there are times when gold pans out after all