The Gold Rush: Part of Sacramento's History... and its Film History

Why Sacramento-based filmmakers need look no farther than their own hometown to find one of Hollywood's best-kept secrets

PART THREE: Charlie Chaplin's 1925 Masterpiece, The Gold Rush, was inspired, he later recalled, by the horrific events that took place within the Donner Party. The film was eventually completely re-shot at his studios in Los Angeles, but it began on location in Truckee. Though Chaplin and crew remained there for six months, literally until the winter snows had melt away, Chaplin's relationship with his co-star, the Tramps on-screen love interest, took a turn for the worse. Having fallen out of love with her, he fired her and started the entire film over again—from scratch.

Chaplin hired a new actress, reconstructed the entire mining town on his own backlot in Los Angeles and literally remade the whole movie. But one piece of his original Truckee footage remains in the final version of the film—the opening shots of the film. As far as the eye can see, men are hiking down an icy overpass, supposedly in the Klondike but actually on a mountain near Truckee.

To pull off the shot, Chaplin hired 200 extras from Sacramento equipped with tools and supplies purchased at Sacramento stores. And so in the end, after six months of on-location shooting—having eaten up countless canisters of film—the only Truckee footage used in his final version of The Gold Rush is of 200 Sacramento residents hiking in the snow.



[While promoting the New York premiere of The Gold Rush, Chaplin had yet another summer-long dalliance with an as yet unknown Ziegfeld follies girl, soon-to-be silent film icon, Louise Brooks. Their short-lived romance is to be featured in Scott Howe's upcoming independent feature film, LULU: The Untold Story of Louise Brooks.]

...to be continued.