The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin) Silent Film Accompanied by Doug Protsik

Back by popular demand! Doug Protsik returns to the Emery Community Arts Center on Saturday, February 1, 2025 to lend his "Old Time Piano" masterfulness to a screening of Charlie Chaplin's silent film, The Gold Rush.

Charlie Chaplin, The Little Tramp, plays The Lone Prospector who, during the Klondike Gold Rush, becomes lost in a blizzard and trapped in a cabin with two other men without food. Forced to eat a shoe and trespassing bear, he finds himself in a desperate situation.

Chaplin, believing tragedies and comedies were not that far apart, drew inspiration from the Klondike Gold Rush and the story of the Donner Party who, while trapped in the Sierra Nevada, were driven to eat leather from their shoes and even cannibalism. Chaplin decided that the "little Tramp" should become a gold-digger who joins a brave optimist determined to face all the pitfalls associated with the search fo…