California’s Yukon as Comic Space

• Main Author: Sandberg, Mark
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Edinburgh University Press 2015
• Subjects: Arctic; Yukon; Sandberg
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694174.003.0010

Addressing location substitution in early silent comedies such as Mack Sennett’s Homemade Movies (1922) and Yukon Jake (1924) Buster Keaton’s The Frozen North (1922) and Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925), along with examples of lesser known films, Mark Sandberg examines the ways in which Hollywood was able to build a simulacrum of the entire world, and the Arctic in particular, on its backlots. Sandberg delineates the claims for authenticity made by these films and the publicity machines that surrounded them, despite their artificiality. Based on extensive research at the Margaret Herrick Library, Sandberg also examines in detail para-material such scenarios, adverts, and Paramount Studios’ location map, to delineate how various world geographies were delineated across the map of California.