Dennis James Silent Movie:  Sunday 14 October 2007, 7 PM, Dennis James, Chaplin "Gold Rush" Silent Movie

     Dennis James is one of the best silent film accompaniment organists around.  Dennis has been at the Great Theatre Pipe Organ of the Arlington on many occasions and has delighted our audiences with his silent film accompaniment.  Dennis has said that if he is doing his job, the audience will not be aware of his playing, it simply blends into the movie.  That is indeed the case.  Each character in the movie has his/her own signature song.  Dennis plays this song when that character is in the lead in a particular scene.  He transitions between various songs and effects seamlessly.  Dennis played with his usual vigor accompanying the Charlie Chaplin classic "Gold Rush".

    Charlie Chaplin is the beloved 'Tramp' in this wistfully comedic excursion into the Klondike region at the time of the Alaskan gold mining expeditions.   The Little Tramp travels to Alaska to take part in the Alaska Gold Rush. After bad weather strands him in a remote cabin with a prospector and an escaped fugitive, the Tramp eventually finds himself in a gold rush town where he ultimately decides to give up prospecting. After taking a job looking after another prospector's cabin, he falls in love with a lonely saloon girl whom he mistakenly thinks has fallen in love with him. He soon finds himself waylaid by the prospector he met earlier, who has developed amnesia and needs the Tramp to help him find his claim.

    The Gold Rush is Chaplin's most celebrated picture and it was the longest and costliest comedy film made up to that time ($923,000).  The film was in production for some fourteen months, a good part of that time being spent in Nevada for the filming of the outdoor snow scenes designed to represent the Chilkoot Pass and the surrounding Alaska vicinity.  Chaplin put more than comedy into this film.  Along with moments of pure hilarity there are scenes of profound pathos.  Georgia Hale, the feminine lead, gives a lively performance as the fiery-tempered dance-hall girl.  Mack Swain, whose career had been in eclipse for some time, gave his top performance, showing a great change from his overdone slapstick persona of the early Mack Sennett days.  Not to be missed are Chaplin's charming 'Dance of the Rolls' which involves the Little Tramp showing a dance to his imaginary dinner guests using two bread rolls stabbed with forks, the dinner feast featuring as the main course a pair of worn out shoes, and the Tramp's incarnation as a giant chicken.  Another famous scene shows a house teetering on the edge of a cliff, before its occupants (including Chaplin) manage to scramble out.