The Reviews Are In

[Chris Snowden]

The reception that Chaplin's The Gold Rush received from small-town audiences wasn't necessarily what you'd expect.

For anyone who might be interested, dozens of exhibitor reviews for the film--- terse, but to the point--- are at my blog this week, at: http://thesilentmovieblog.wordpress.com ... ws-are-in/

These were an eye-opener for me. See what you think.

[Gary Johnson]

I have read the same exhibitor's complaint's leveled against Harold Lloyd - that by 1926 Paramount
charged too much and the only people who could possibly make a profit were the studio and Lloyd.

[Chris Snowden]

Yes, it was a perennial complaint with the Lloyd features (throughout the 1920s) that the rentals were too costly for the exhibitors to see much profit.

With the Lloyd Paramount releases, the exhibitors had to pay a flat rental fee plus a percentage of the total admissions paid. Checkers would show up at the theater and count heads in the audience, to make sure Lloyd was getting every nickel due on his percentage.

You can imagine how unpopular this was with the theater men, who put up with it only for as long as they could count on a Lloyd movie to fill the house. When he became less bankable after Welcome Danger, exhibitors were less inclined to book his films, which I think accelerated his fall from stardom.

[David B Pearson]

The reception that Chaplin's The Gold Rush received from small-town audiences wasn't necessarily what you'd expect.

For anyone who might be interested, dozens of exhibitor reviews for the film--- terse, but to the point--- are at my blog this week, at: http://thesilentmovieblog.wordpress.com ... ws-are-in/

These were an eye-opener for me. See what you think.

I think it's a good example of what happens when the World's Most Popular Comedian decides he'd rather be a Dramatic Artist. Alexander Woollcott might have been thrilled, but the patrons over in Gopher City were more on the ball on what they were getting, and from whom -- and felt shortchanged.

Maybe that's why The Circus has a lot more gags: Charlie got the message (at least for a while).

DBP