Ruggles of Red Gap - Film Impression

directed by Leo McCarrey, 1935

The premise of this film is thus: an English Duke, during a drunken game of poker, bet the services of his tireless butler to the Americans, whom he was entertaining, while in Paris. He loses, and consequently, Marmaduke Ruggles (played by Charles Laughton) finds himself with what must be the two most obnoxious and confusing people he’s ever met, and the stuffy British butler is completely helpless in the services of his new master. Very much to my chagrin, it reminded me right away of They Had to See Paris: two Americans by the name of Floud (Floud!); an inept, shrill gold digger trying to get into “society”, and her well-to-do husband a layabout American hick with no fashion sense and poor manners, both of whom are vacationing in Paris, and later take him into their home back in rural Washington. I absolutely loathe the Borzage film; it was the most puerile piece of pro-working class guff you can imagine, with Will Rogers’ schtick paradoxically both propelling the film above pure mediocrity and making it even more unbearable (magically, John Ford would use the same actor to craft two of his best early sound films). Thankfully, this film either completely avoids or utterly transends all the pitfalls that made that film such a disaster.

Now, Ruggles of Red Gap is a classic comedy; one which scarcely fits into what one normally thinks of in the screwball genre which dominated the era, and is much more in line with Capra’s films like Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can’t Take It With You. The differences, though, are obvious in so many levels. First of all, whereas Capra films tend to be more charming and warm than funny...Ruggles of Red Gap is funny, indeed, as comic creations go, it’s a masterpiece. The dialogue absolutely sparkles not just with ‘lines’ and ‘quips’, and there are numerous wonderful bits of that, but whole conversations sparkle. And so much of the film’s pleasure, especially in the initial scenes (but all throughout the film) is watching the always bewildered and confused Laughton (in a role, I might add, that is different from anything else I’d seen him in) reacting, ever so subtly but definitely, to his new masters, and later his reactions to their hometown...and their reaction to him. Most of these scenes would actually be rather funny even without Ruggles’s reactions; its not just one man’s show, but so much of the film’s humor is brought to life by his unmistakenly British presence.

I can almost guarantee that you’ll burst into laughter on at least one or two occasions. Still, most film makers would be content to play the comedy out; that of a stuffy British butler lost in a rural community of Washington, and just tack on a life affirming ending. I’m not sure how much of this is true of the original novel’s subtext, but McCarey and crew begin the tale as an amusing dialectic comedy of culture clash, and keep the focus therein. Marmaduke Ruggles is well aware of his heritage as a member of the service class in Britain; he extolls and cherishes it, but the sudden influx of the American values of freedom and equality being thrust upon him by the (perhaps idealized; though not as cloyingly as in most Capra films) jolly hicks of Red Gap, begin to rub off on him something fierce.

The miracle of this film is just how subtly ‘America’ dawns on Ruggles, and how Laughton and McCarey observe this otherwise radical shift in the tone of his character without ever breaking it. Of course, the most famous scene in the film; and justly so, is the scene in which Ruggles, much to the surprise of the tenants at the bar he is currently occupying (who, upon being prompted to do so, all failed), recites the entirety of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. In retrospect, it shows the marked change in his character as he has come to love the country; as his initial reaction to the idea of being brought to America was a fear of horseback gunslinging cowboys. On its own, it’s a magnificent and transforming scene that could easily be hokum; and I’m sure many would accuse it of such, but it has the same crippling effect as Chaplin’s speech at the end of The Great Dictator, or Stewart’s at the end of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

The film may lack the perfect grace of The Awful Truth; another great McCarey film (and the one which established Cary Grant); indeed this is a very silly film...but it more than makes up for it with its sheer warmth, breadth of character, and sincerity, and the fact that its truly very funny. The movie is too positive; its sentiments too genuine, for me to dislike. I think I love it, myself. Jean Renoir once said that Leo McCarey understood people more than any other person in Hollywood. Maybe he was talking about Make Way For Tomorrow instead; film critics and scholars and the like tend to refer to it as *the* McCarey film, but I’m sure he had this film on his mind too. Indeed, there were numerous tiny moments that make me think of Renoir in the film; it definitely approaches him at a few points, as the humanity of the film isn’t just limited to Ruggles, and most of its cast is given ample opportunity to shine alongside him (especially Roland Young, who plays the exceedingly dry Earl of Burnstead). Having compared this film to Renoir...if that isn’t high praise for a Hollywood comedy, then I don’t know what is. This could become my favorite comedy of the era.

I give this film a very healthy 93 / 100

This is another film in Universal’s “archive” series; a barebones disc and, unlike Remember the Night, a DVD-R. It looks good, though...not the worst transfer ever, and the print definitely looks restored. Between Warner and Universal, I wonder how many of their greatest owned properties are being dumped into these archives.