10 Film Director's Cuts That Actually Made The Movie Shorter

Shorter by: 23 minutes

Long before the phrase "director's cut" entered the film fan's common parlance, perhaps the first example of a film director re-cutting his own work for a new release can be found in 1942 with this 1925 silent classic getting a new lease of life for modern audiences used to talkies.

Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited and starred in the film, making both versions of The Gold Rush very much his personal solo vision. For the 1942 re-issue Chaplin took advantage of the advances in sound to add a new musical score and his own voiceover narration. But he also tightened up a lot of the editing and even removed whole scenes including much of the romantic story between his Lone Prospector and Georgia Hale.

None of this, however, accounts for why the 1942 Gold Rush ended up being over 20 minutes shorter than Chaplin's original film. No, that happened because the new version was literally faster.

Silent films were simply shot and exhibited at a slower rate than those in the 1940s. So, just by switching The Gold Rush to the standard 24 frames per second rate of almost all sound-era pictures, Chaplin ended up with a much shorter movie.