The Gold Rush (1925)
Directed by Charlie Chaplin; Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite, Georgia Hale. Classic Chaplin (the Little Tramp) prospects for gold, gets involved with a dance hall girl, and deals with a burly competitor during the Yukon gold rush. This is the 1942 re-release version with music and narration by Chaplin and intertitles deleted.
The Gold Rush features one of the most memorable food scenes in movie history: "Inside the cabin meanwhile, hungry and desperate, the Tramp and Big Jim celebrate "Thanksgiving Dinner," in a famous, classic feast/meal scene. The Tramp and Big Jim are reduced to starvation, so the Tramp resorts to boiling and cooking a tasty dinner for them. He chooses one of his boots as the object of their Thanksgiving dinner, taking on airs as a gourmet at a feast. He watches it cooking on the stove until perfectly simmered. He then carves the boot (splitting and cutting it like a filet), and offers the upper part to Big Jim. He pours water over it like gravy. He chews on the lower sole part, treating it like a delicacy, and he twirls the laces like spaghetti. He daintily sucks the nails, like they were the bones of a game bird, or small fishbones. Indifferent to his comrades plight, Black Larsen stumbles on the claim of Big Jim McKay," while the two of them still wait for relief. Because they have eaten his boot, and he only has rags for clothes, the Tramp must now sit with his foot in the oven to keep warm. When starvation strikes again, Jim suffers more "food" hallucinations, and crazily imagines the Tramp transformed into a giant, plump chicken, ripe for slaughter. He chases his appetizing friend with a gun and later with an axe. The panic-stricken Tramp defends himself with the shot-gun in a hand-to-hand struggle with Jim. A hungry passing bear wanders into the cabin and gets involved in the struggle. The Tramp aims and kills it as it runs off, solving their food problem." <