Ché-Cha-Co

Quick setup: a mother and child are separated in a shipwreck during the Alaska gold rush and two guys end up raising the kid.

The story was surprisingly interesting. Pretty atypical of Hollywood pictures of the time. A bit slow paced for my taste but that's nothing to complain about since the duration wasn't long and the editing was more than adequate.

The best aspect of this film is the setting. The Alaska moving pictures corporation (which i can't say I've seen any other films from) really used Alaska to great benefit and chose to tell a story that is greatly enhanced by it. There are many beautiful shots here that justify watching the film alone. Just don't go in expecting The Great White Silence (1924) or Nanook of the North (1922) since this best aspect of the film is dampened a bit by the worst criticism I have with it which is that for 99% of the run time, the camera is moving at speeds reaching as high as approximately 0.00 meters per second.

Depending on who you talk to this static camera should be considered weak and outdated after 1914 or 1919 or 1927. The film was released in 1923, so pick for yourself whether contextually this is a valid criticism or not. I personally fall into the "i watched it now, I'm (dis) recommending it now, i find it (bad) good by my standards, not what i think it'd be like in 1920s" group.

Thanks for reading.

Quite well done when you ignore the melodramatic aspects of the plot. Interesting as an almost contemporary look at the Alaskan Gold Rush culture. The crossing of the Chilcoot pass scenes probably were borrowed from by Chaplin in 'The Gold Rush 1925)' and by other directors as well.

Supposed to be the first feature shot in Alaska. Chechahco means tenderfoot or greenhorn in one of the Alaskan native languages.

I just love when a movie with a prefix "the first ever to" turns out to be not only that but also a great movie after all. 1924's "The Chechahcos" was the first movie ever to be shot in its entirety in Alaska, even the indoor scenes. Before having watched it I thought it would be just another movie about those gold diggers who came to Alaska hoping to get rich but boy was I wrong. This is a tender story of a girl who loses her mother in an incident and the two men who saved her and became her guardians as she grew up. This silent movie is everything it's supposed to be: heart-warming, romantic, adventurous, thrilling, at times brutal and, of course, kind. It is one of a kind!

I was so surprised when I found out there are like only two sentences about this movie on Wikipedia - it deserves so much more than that. In fact, the shots of Alaska were so beautiful and unique that Charlie Chaplin himself used a couple of them for his well-known hit "The Gold Rush" a year later and that says something.

I love silent movies. There's something about them that a talkie doesn't have and it isn't sound. It's the soul. We experience a new spectrum of emotions by absorbing what's happening on the screen - we see the actors live through their roles not getting to hear a word from them. Pure emotions. Isn't it worth turning the sound off?!

The high quality scenery and photography in themselves make "The Chechahcos" well worth seeing. It was shot entirely on location in Alaska, and there are many sequences featuring beautiful and austere Alaskan scenery. All of the production end is of very good quality, down to the artistically detailed inter-titles that were clearly made with some care. It's especially impressive to see such attention to detail in a small-studio production.

The story is somewhat interesting, if overly melodramatic at times. While the setting is unusual and very interesting, the plot simply pulls together a number of stock elements that were well-worn even in the 1920s, from an orphaned girl to a dishonored woman to a villainous gambler and his henchman. In another setting, it would have gotten old quickly, but the background of nature's unforgiving forces and the frenzy of the gold rush usually help to keep the more hackneyed elements from becoming too obtrusive.

The cast consists of performers that were largely little-known even at the time, but most of them give creditable performances. Gladys Johnston is charming as the young heroine, and William Dills does a solid job as a crusty old codger who starts to care in spite of himself.

Overall, this is a good movie and worth seeing for anyone who enjoys silent films. The photography and scenery are especially worthwhile, and while this was supposed to have been a financial flop, several of the sequences anticipate scenes in Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" of the following year. Not to put it quite on that level, but "The Chechahcos" does have as much to offer as do a lot of other movies that are better remembered today.