ENTERTAINMENTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLVI, Issue 10704, 30 March 1926, Page 7

ENTERTAINMENTS

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE

“THE GOLD RUSH.” What has been pronounced by experts as one of the most extraordinary panoramas ever filmed is the spectacle of the famed Chilkoct“Pass, gateway to the Klondike goldfields, in “The Gold Rush,” Charlie Chaplin’s most pretentious comedy-drama which is being presented at His Majesty’s to-night and to-morrow night under a United Artists Corporation release. The aweinspiring reproduction of the pass was made at an elevation' of 9,850 feet, near the summit of the high Sierras, and cost Chaplin more than 50,000 dollars to film. The locale was near the crest of Mount Lincoln, far above timber line on granite ledges where glisten eternal snows. Professional ski-jumpers were hired ta cut a. pathway 2300 feet long through the deeply-banked snow, the ascent rising to a height of 1000 feet above a narrow basin known as “The Sugar Bowl,” where rude camps of the prospectors were constructed. To reach the locale, a trail bad to be broken nine miles’from the railroad through an immense fir forest to provide a roadway for the vast amount of material used in filming the majestic scene. The mining camp constructed and the pass opened, Chaplin called upon the Southern Pacific railroad to round up 2,500 men to portray the gold seeker’s rush for the Klondike. Bearing their packs on their backs, a huge gathering of human derelicts was assembled representing beggary on a holiday. / The prospect of appearing in a picture with Chaplin, the most famed of vagabonds, brought rovers from far and wide, and they realistically fought their way through the snow as if gold itself was to be their reward rather than a mere 1 1 day’s pay. i Chaplin himself directed the scene, > giving instructions and personally leadI ing the men, as is his custom in all • his productions. The frigid temperatures and the laborious ascent in the thin atmosphere of high altitude 1 made the picture climb up the precipitous mountain side a marvel in scenic pro- , ductions.