Ruggles of Red Gap

Since it isn't on DVD, you might have to go to a little effort to see it, but go out right now and find yourself a copy of Leo McCarey's Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) with Charles Laughton. Bits from this perfectly pitched comedy keep coming back to me and making me laugh (even though this has been a pretty crappy week). Laughton plays Ruggles, a perfect English butler who has the misfortune of being lost by his master in a poker game. His new master and mistress are from the frontier town of Red Gap, Washington. In America. Ruggles is not pleased, but being an uncomplaining English sort he goes along with it.

The relationships between Ruggles, his rootin' tootin' new master, and his stuffy new mistress highlight all that is good and bad about Americans. And, appropriately enough for this President's Day weekend, there is a climactic scene where Ruggles recites the Gettysburg Address in a saloon that is actually pretty moving. Although the best part of the movie might be when Ruggles inadvertently gets really drunk in Paris...

The only clip I could find from the movie is this charming exchange between Roland Young (who plays George Vane Bassingwell, the Earl of Burnstead -- Ruggles' English employer) and Leila Hyams (who astute viewers might recognize from Todd Browning's 1932 movie Freaks), a dance hall girl with whom the Earl is smitten. It is a pretty great clip, and Young's delivery is hilarious, but I wish I could find something with Charles Laughton in it...


This story, based on the 1915 book by Harry Leon Wilson (which you can read in its entirety here), was filmed several times, but I think the 1935 version looks like the best one. And even though Fancy Pants might be a better title, Bob Hope is certainly no Charles Laughton.