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建议 "The Gold Rush"
Events in a man's life often culminate queerly, as if manipulated for dramatic effect by an unseen director who, with megaphone to lips, soundlessly thunders : "Register! This is the headline scene. Strut! This is the big-act." Such a climax occurred one day last week in the career of an undersized gentleman who was perceived, at dawn, walking up and down the terrace of his villa at Beverly Hills, Calif. A medical man in his employ issued from the house and crossed the grass to the little fellow, making, as he came, expressive gestures. The other's face relaxed. He beamed, took the doctor's arm, crossed to the house with him at a skipping run. In an hour the world knew that a 6¾-pound boy had been born to Mrs. Lita G. Chaplain, wife of Charles S. Chaplin, famed cinema clown. The world already knew that, a few hours before, his latest picture, The Gold Rush, had been shown in a Hollywood cinema house.
All the notables for miles around had gathered in the Egyptian Theatre to see Charles S. Chaplin in The Gold Rush— the picture 9,000 feet long which has taken him two years to make and of which he had remarked: "This is the picture I want to be remembered by, heedless of the fact that his press agent was listening.
On the screen, a shadow flickered—a shadow with feet like boxcars and a smile like the last soliloquy of Hamlet. He was a tenderfoot. The date was the year of Our Lord 1896—a period in which gentlemen were proud to spend several thousand dollars of lousy paper money to dig up a couple of ounces of mica "in the Klondike. ... A blizzard. A straggling company of ragged monte-banks passing through a wintry defile; Chilkoot Pass. Chaplin left behind in the dash for gold, blown to the door of a lonely cabin. Does the hearty Westerner within open his door, warm the tattered stranger with a glass of whiskey? No; he snarls through a crack in the window; Chilly Chaplin reels off in the storm. . . .
The violinists in the Egyptian Theatre played another tune. . . . This is a dance hall. A piano with sinus trouble clangs for the twiddling feet of Big Jim McKay, swashbuckling prospector who picks his teeth and his sweethearts with a Colt 44. The tiny mustachioed orphan of the storm beams innocently over the shoulder of McKay's own dearest. . . . Old stuff about an endearing note which Chaplin receives by mistake. . . . Out to make his pile so that he can wed the Klondike Kitty Kelly . . . . More prospectors*. . . . The big strike; the search for the girl; the scene on board the ocean liner in which the stunted erstwhile prospector, now in purple and fine sable, lounges on the first cabin, his heart aswoon for a vanished barmaid . . . while down in the steerage the girl tosses on her midnight pallet, wishing for her hobo-brummel. . . .The audience in the Egyptian Theatre made comments on the picture. . . .An epic in comedy . . . Gloria Hale, his new leading lady, a most adept young actress . . . Good support by a comedian named Mack Swain . . . . An epic in comedy, written, directed, acted by a man who understands that the cinema is a medium of high art only because it can be used, as can no other medium, to express the illimitable diversity of life.
淘金记
鉴于网友 溺水的鱼 已经完成了翻译，再次仅把我翻完的部分发上来，仅供大家参考。
人生的转折点常常在不经意间带着精心策划的戏剧效果到来。你仿佛可以听见某个无形的导演对着大话筒在无声地大喊：“注意了！这是开场。挺胸抬头！这是大场面。”在上周，这样的高潮就降临到一位个头矮小的先生身上。这天清晨，他在加州百弗利山自己家的台阶上焦急地走来走去的。一位医生从屋子里出来，穿过草地向他走来，一边打着手势。这位先生的神情缓和下来，面露喜色，拉起医生的胳膊蹦蹦跳跳的向屋子跑去。一个小时后，全世界都将知道著名喜剧演员查理·S·卓别林的夫人丽塔·G·卓别林生了一个6磅多的大胖小子。而就在几个小时之前，全世界已经知道了他的最新影片《淘金记》在好莱坞上映的消息。
这一天，方圆数里的名流都聚集在埃及剧院观看查理·S·卓别林的《淘金记》。这部影片的胶片有9000英尺长，制作周期超过两年。卓别林自己自豪地评价这部影片说：“我希望能以这部影片而名垂青史”，而对旁边的出版社代理人毫不在意。
在萤幕上，一个影子跳动着——这个影子脚上穿着硕大的鞋子，脸上有着仿佛哈姆雷特在最后独白时的诡异笑容。他的身份是个学徒，而时间则是1896年——这是一个疯狂的时期，绅士们肯花大笔钱去开矿，而最后挖到的可能只是几盎司云母。
