IMDb > Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) More at IMDbPro »

Overview

User Rating:
8.0/10   986 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 9% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Leo McCarey
Writers:
Harry Leon Wilson (novel)
Humphrey Pearson (adaptation)
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Contact:
View company contact information for Ruggles of Red Gap on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
8 March 1935 (USA) more
Genre:
Comedy | Romance more
Tagline:
SH-H-H-H! TONIGHT'S YOUR NIGHT TO HOWL! And howl you will at this funniest of all comedies...
Plot:
An English valet brought to the American west assimilates into the American way of life. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
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Awards:
Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win more
NewsDesk:
Birthday Suit: You've Seen Demi's
 (From FilmExperience. 11 November 2009, 4:00 AM, PST)
User Comments:
Making Your Way In A New World more (21 total)

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Charles Laughton ... Marmaduke Ruggles
Mary Boland ... Effie Floud
Charles Ruggles ... Egbert Floud (as Charlie Ruggles)
Zasu Pitts ... Prunella Judson (as ZaSu Pitts)
Roland Young ... George Vane Bassingwell, the Earl of Burnstead
Leila Hyams ... Nell Kenner
Maude Eburne ... 'Ma' Pettingill
Lucien Littlefield ... Charles Belknap-Jackson
Leota Lorraine ... Mrs. Charles Belknap-Jackson
James Burke ... Jeff Tuttle
Dell Henderson ... Sam, bartender (as Del Henderson)
Clarence Wilson ... Jake Henshaw, reporter
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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
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Runtime:
90 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Black and White
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)
Certification:
Portugal:M/12 (re-release) | USA:Approved (PCA #537)
Filming Locations:
Paramount Ranch - 2813 Cornell Road, Agoura, California, USA
Company:
Paramount Pictures more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Nazi Germany banned the release of any German-dubbed version of this film because of the Gettysburg Address speech. more
Quotes:
Egbert Floud: I ain't gonna have no English valet.
Effie Floud: Oh, yes you are.
Egbert Floud: No, I ain't! I got about as much use for one of them as a pig has for side pockets.
more
Movie Connections:
Featured in 100 Years of Comedy (1997) (V) more
Soundtrack:
Pretty Baby more

FAQ

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User Comments

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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful.
Making Your Way In A New World, 6 October 2006
9/10
Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

Ruggles of Red Gap is the warm and tender story of Charles Laughton, gentlemen's gentlemen to Lord Roland Young who loses his services in a poker game to American western tourist Charlie Ruggles and his wife Mary Boland. Ruggles has some ideas about class distinction and one's proper place in society and he's in for quite a culture shock when he's brought back to the western town of Red Gap in Washington State.

In a way Ruggles of Red Gap is the polar opposite of The Earl of Chicago where an American gangster Robert Montgomery inherits an English title and experiences a reverse culture shock. In that film Montgomery has an English valet in Edmund Gwenn who indoctrinates him in reverse of what Laughton experiences. Of course things turn out a whole lot better for Marmaduke Ruggles than for the Earl of Kinmont.

In a way Ruggles of Red Gap may have been Charles Laughton's most personal film. In his life he became an American citizen because he preferred the American view of no titles of nobility and that one had better opportunities here than in Europe. It caused a certain amount of friction between Laughton and some other British players.

Laughton up to then had played a whole lot of bigger than life parts like Nero, Henry VIII, Captain Bligh, Edward Moulton Barrett, parts that called for a lot of swagger. Marmaduke Ruggles is a different kind of man. Self contained, shy, and unsure of himself in new surroundings. But Laughton pulls it off beautifully. It's almost Quasimodo without the grotesque make up. Also very much like the school teacher in This Land is Mine.

Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland never fail to entertain, they worked beautifully together in a number of films in the early Thirties. They always were a married couple, Boland a very haughty woman with some exaggerated ideas of her own importance and her ever patient and somewhat henpecked husband Charlie. In Ruggles of Red Gap, Charlie Ruggles is a little less henpecked.

My guess is that Zasu Pitts played the role she did because Elsa Lanchester might have been busy elsewhere. I believe she was making the Bride of Frankenstein around this time. Pitts's scenes with Laughton resonate the same way as some of Charles Laughton's best work with his wife.

The highlight of Ruggles of Red Gap has always been Laughton's recital of The Gettysburg Address. In a scene in a saloon where none of the American born people can remember anything of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Laughton the immigrant recited it from memory. It was a harbinger of some of Laughton's later recitals which I remember as a kid on the Ed Sullivan show. The scene is a tribute to all the immigrants who come here because of the ideals this country is supposed to represent. Sometimes our immigrants have taken it more seriously than those who were born here. Immigrants like Charles Laughton.

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