Watch Ruggles of Red Gap For Free

Powerful

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

An English valet (Charles Laughton) brought to the American west assimilates into the American way of life.The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and competed against two other Laughton films that were also nominated: Mutiny on the Bounty (which won the award) and Les Misérables. I would say this is the one that should have won, but is any Charles Laughton movie really a bad choice? Leila Hyams (who plays the "dancer" here) is perhaps best remembered for two early 1930s horror movies, as the wise-cracking but kind-hearted circus performer in Freaks (1932), and as the heroine in the Bela Lugosi film Island of Lost Souls (1932). Hyams was the original choice to play Jane in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), but turned it down. Why she did that is a mystery. Also ,she seems to have dropped out of acting after "Ruggles", which is also strange given the positive reviews she had.

Leo McCarey's "Ruggles of Red Gap" (1935) is a fantastic comedy that has an expertly conceived, slowly unfolding narrative built above all things on the strength of the whole cast.The film largely revolves around the notion of opposites: overstated in gesture, understated in gesture; extrovert, introvert; brotherly intimacy, respectful distance. Laughton and Young abide always in the latter, Charles Ruggles (playing Egbert) and the rest of the Americans inhabit the former. All of these traits of characterization are then blown out of proportion, and both the comedy and underlying humanity is activated when these two extremes are first juxtaposed and then merged into one another: Ruggles' (not Charles but Laughton's character) drunkenness, the Earl's fascination with playing drums, and then the seminal moment toward the end where he quotes Lincoln. While it is Ruggles who's whipsawed by this cultural counterpoint the most, my favourite moments still go to the Earl, beautifully understated, and to Egbert, who is kindness and well-intentioned independence embodied.But this is so much more than just stereotype-floundered, exploitative farce. There's great humanity all around, and this balance is able to produce strong emotional responsiveness and identification either way – be it Egbert meeting his friend on the street in Europe, or Ruggles or the Earl refusing to open their social space. The characters are revealed as human and humane. Perhaps the payoff in the end rubs it a bit too much on my nose, but on the other and it's completely justified in the context of the film.

British-born but American-naturalized comedian Bob Hope had first followed his classic Western comedy THE PALEFACE (1948) with FANCY PANTS (1950) where he played a stuffy English butler out West; it was pure coincidence, therefore, that I happened to come across the remake of the former – the Don Knotts vehicle THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST (1968) – and the original of the latter (which is the film under review) for this year's Christmas season.RUGGLES OF RED GAP was an oft-filmed novel and this version (perhaps the best-known and undoubtedly the best) was already the third screen treatment. Charles Laughton was clearly on a roll in the early 1930s, with three superlative performances in 1935 alone – the others being his celebrated (and Oscar-nominated) Captain Bligh in MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and Javert in LES MISERABLES – but I'd venture to say that his Marmaduke Ruggles is the one that ought to have been singled out for the highest praise. His social standing as a butler doesn't allow him to appear flustered by all the lunacy going on around him and, as a result, his subtle reactions are a sheer joy to behold and a clear testament to the actor's capabilities and emotional range. In fact, the film's first 20 minutes or so (set in Paris, France) are a hilarious succession of events that seriously test the age-old values of the unflappable Ruggles (culminating in a memorable drinking sequence that brought tears to my eyes from laughter).It is ironic that a film which headlines a character named Ruggles should have an actor named Ruggles in a main role but Charlie Ruggles manages to defeat that challenge and emerge almost as shiny as Laughton himself; he plays a hen-pecked American tourist (as usual, he's married to bossy Mary Boland who wins Ruggles in a bet with his reckless master Roland Young) and proceeds to take him to his hometown of Red Gap, Washington, U.S.A. Charlie's persistence in treating Ruggles as his equal and call him "Colonel" gives his compatriots the mistaken notion that Laughton was a high-ranking British officer and, consequently, they start regarding him as a local celebrity. However, his ruse slowly starts to unravel when he meets up with klutzy cook Zasu Pitts and starts giving her pointers on spicing up her meat sauce… Although the film eventually loses some of that initial frenzied momentum, it is never less than enjoyable and, occasionally, even moving: at one point, Laughton lets his real cultured self show through in front of his feather-brained American bar-room cronies when murmuring Abraham Lincoln's famous address at Gettysburg – according to Edward Dmytryk (who worked as an editor on the picture), ultra-sensitive Laughton got so emotional in speaking those lines (and which subsequently became favorites of his) that it took director Leo McCarey one-and-a-half days to shoot the scene! Also, according to Laughton's wife Elsa Lanchester, the subject was clearly close to his heart as it was he who brought to Paramount's attention and picked McCarey to direct the film, whose sole Oscar nod would be for the Best Picture of the Year (although Laughton did eventually win the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actor).P.S. This was yet another case of DivX foul-up for me as the copy I initially got kept pixelating and freezing before the DVD conversion conveniently resolved the issues satisfactorily.

What's great about having a hundred years worth of movies is the ability to see how people have solved various cinematic problems. It isn't that we have exhausted the limits of the thing -- in fact I think we are just getting started.But the simple things, I mean. And in particular the simple comedic things.I'd like to talk you into seeing this for comedy by the rolling, moving, shifting eye. Charles Laughton is a valet who gets involved in a traditional British comedy of class. You know, the business about shifting levels. Absolutely mundane in its basic shape and I've seen other versions that are thoroughly mundane.But here, all the comedy depends on Laughton. And all his technique (except for some subtle hand flappings with his arms aside) is in his eyes. He rolls them. he sifts them, opens wide, sometimes stares. He's otherwise the staid servant.It is a lesson in comedic acting. Pure, almost as if it were designed as an example. And everything that surrounds it is bland, as if to highlight the example.There's something about eyes and cinema. Even in a simple comedy, we subconsciously know we are watching. Sometimes we choose to watch askance ourselves. In a strange way, this sometimes staid observer is our standin. And when he rolled his eyes, I felt mine pulled a bit.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.