The film was indeed the Gold Rush, with Charlie Chaplin, only he ate his boots his pal didn't, he imagined his pal was a human sized chicken and he tried to kill and eat him. They were starving whilst looking for gold.
In The Gold Rush writer, director, and star Charlie Chaplin best demonstrated the dramatic possibilities of food. Finding himself freezing, starving, and snowbound in an Alaskan cabin with another prospector at Thanksgiving, Chaplin is unwilling to spend the holiday without an appropriate meal. So he boils one of his boots, carves and delicately plates it, offers his companion the choice of "sole" or "boot," and proceeds to eat the shoelace as though it were spaghetti.