Ruggles of Red Gap October 30, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s , trackback
When I attended a conversation with Wes Anderson during the New York Film Festival a few weeks ago, an audience member asked the director what movies from the last few years had he seen and enjoyed. Anderson struggled a bit with the question, clearly preoccupied by the significant amount of time he’d been devoting to his new film The Darjeeling Limited and perhaps unwilling to play favorites among recent fare. He finally did recommend a film: Ruggles of Red Gap. Leo McCarey’s comedy about a British manservant who’s lost in a poker game and has his services transferred from an English Earl to a wealthy American cowboy was actually released in 1935. Ehh, what’s seventy years or so.
I knew of Ruggles of Red Gap, but not much beyond that. My philosophy, for better or worse, is usually to wait for a DVD release because I have an interest in so many movies that I haven’t yet seen as to make it literally impossible to catch up with everything I want to see in the next couple of years (decades?). But then I saw Ruggles of Red Gap was getting a theatrical showing in Brooklyn, courtesy of being a selection in gifted author Jonathan Lethem’s series of picks for BAM. I love most everything I’ve seen from Leo McCarey and Charles Laughton (who stars as Ruggles) is nearly without peer in film acting throughout the ’30s, ’40s,’ and ’50s (plus Spartacus and Advise & Consent). Since Ruggles doesn’t have a DVD release anywhere in the world that I know of, I figured this was as good of an opportunity as any.
Bingo! I was right. Ruggles of Red Gap immediately took its place as one of the better comedies I’ve seen from the 1930s. Laughton is really outstanding as the title character. His transformation from completely uptight and proper valet to a liberated man of the people is extraordinary. The scene where his new employer, Egbert Floud, and Floud’s friend are drinking at a Paris cafe, suddenly drunk after a cut fast forwards the drinking time, perfectly plays with the audience. We see the two Americans obnoxiously hooting and hollering as Ruggles sits silently in the middle with mostly full glasses of alcohol. Suddenly, though, Ruggles lets out his own exclamation and it becomes obvious that he too is tanked, albeit with considerably less consumed. From then on, Ruggles is his own man, slowly freed from a life of servitude.
There are enough shenanigans and humorous moments in McCarey’s film to merit a strong recommendation on the sole basis of it making the audience laugh without feeling bad about what we find funny, but there’s also a stronger, more touching stream running beneath the comedy. When Ruggles is first told by his master, the Earl of Bumstead (Roland Young), that he’s been lost in a poker game and will have to make America his new home, he associates the continent with slavery. Such an inhumane and cruel practice is obviously looked upon unfavorably by this man, one who ironically spends his life at the beck and call of another human being, someone who treats him like a lesser citizen and requires his services for seemingly personal and simple matters like dressing and reading the newspaper.
Obviously, this is a big part of the film’s point. Despite Ruggles’ apprehension at living in a nation where slavery thrived not too long ago, his own existence is not far removed and certainly lacking in any sort of autonomous independence. By showing and gently beating the audience over the head with this idea, the film shines the spotlight on the ridiculous distinctions between classes and generations encumbered with status quo acceptances of rigid, outdated refusals to recognize individual liberty. Funny, biting humor is one thing and should be applauded accordingly, but inserting reminders like this of the worth of each person and the eventual refusal to accept society’s placement remains a refreshing prospect.
That, of course, leads me to the film’s most touching and profound scene. Ruggles has just been fired by his nemesis, the opportunistic Easterner Charles Belknap-Jackson, and coincidentally runs into Egbert and Ma Pettingill at the Silver Dollar Saloon. Egbert cites Abraham Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg, but has trouble remembering exactly what Lincoln said. No one else in the bar knows either. Suddenly Ruggles, in a near whisper, begins to recite Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, one of the most eloquent and moving speeches in American history. This Englishman knows what a room full of Americans doesn’t. It’s a touching, misty-eyed scene that rises above preachiness and, instead, works as a beautiful reminder of the easily-forgotten beauty the United States has to offer in its history, if not its present.
When Laughton recites the Gettysburg Address in full, it got me. This from someone who’s constantly looking for ways to leave the country for a peaceful and fresh start. I suppose I’m just as susceptible to well-done patriotism as the next person. None of the cloying, candycoated nonsense too often prevalent in the propaganda-laced films of World War II-era America, please. This is entirely different. Aside from just being highly accomplished and believable, it plays as real and sincere. Whatever my country has destroyed in the last seventy-two years, there will always be that artifact of true equality espoused by a legitimate president who apparently believed the words he spoke and wasn’t subject to inane blogs and all-day news channels questioning his every bathroom break. Again, Laughton’s scene is full of grace and beauty that remarkably holds years of history and incompetence on its shoulders without diminishing any of its power.
Along with Laughton, I’ll give credit for the film’s success to director Leo McCarey. A true titan of the 1930s, McCarey is often overlooked today due to a lack of availability of his films and the fact that his most popular picture, Duck Soup, is usually credited to the Marx Brothers more than its director. An even better film, The Awful Truth starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunne and the dog who’d play Asta in the Thin Man series, won McCarey an Academy Award, but doesn’t receive very much acclaim among today’s audiences. He also won the Oscar for Going My Way, a crowd-pleasing 1944 film starring Bing Crosby as a priest, but his modest reputation belies the talent shown in great films from The Milky Way, with Harold Lloyd, to Make Way for Tomorrow, a picture about the struggle of the elderly.
Ruggles of Red Gap had been tried on film twice before McCarey’s effort, but never afterwards. This version was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and is, presumably, the definitive telling of the story. Until Universal, who controls the home video rights through a deal with Paramount several years ago, decides to let the film breathe on DVD, viewers will have to be content with tracking down the VHS, praying for a television airing or the rare theatrical screening. I’d expect little more out of Universal, the studio who still controls the most accomplished and unreleased classic film library, and one who hasn’t released barely anything from it this year. Let’s hope Ruggles of Red Gap gets released sooner rather than later.
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