A recently restored 4K version of Charlie Chaplin‘s The Gold Rush — not the 1942 re-released version (72 minutes w/Chaplin’s narration + occasional sound) but the original 95-minute silent classic — will open the Cannes Classics section in the early evening of Tuesday, 5.13.

I’ll be arriving in Cannes roughly four hours before the screening, but I’m not especially enthused about attending the screening, to be honest. I’ve just re-watched the ’42 version and had seen it once before somewhere. That’ll suffice.

The Gold Rush was shot in late ’24 and early ’25, and premiered on June 26, 1925. Portions were shot in the snow-covered terrain of Truckee, California; the rest was shot on sound stages in Chaplin’s studio on La Brea Ave.

The New Year’s Eve “auld lang syne” scene is my favorite segment.

A kind of Roman Polanski-ish figure in his day, Chaplin had a thing for much younger women. Lita Grey, whom Chaplin began a sexual relationship with when she was 15 (are you reading this, Polanski pitchforkers?), had originally been cast as Georgia. But Grey was was replaced by the 24-year-old Georgia Hale after Grey got pregnant. Chaplin’s marriage to Grey “collapsed” during production of the film, largely because he’d taken up with Hale.

Hale didn’t marry Chaplin, but was on romantic terms with him (bip-bip-bip) in the late 1920s and early ’30s. She became wealthy through real estate investments, and died on 6.17.85.