Charles Laughton is priceless as the title character, Ruggles of Red Gap, a transplanted manservant who's 'won' in a card game and brought to America by Egbert Floud (Charles Ruggles) and his ineffectively overbearing wife Effie (Mary Boland). Laughton has the perfectly stunned look of a person out of his element in the first half of the film, though he gradually comes around to embrace the American spirit of individuality and equality, a theme regularly reinforced throughout the story. That theme reaches it's climax when Marmaduke Ruggles recites Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to a saloon crowd that's held in awe by this British import who they all mistakenly take for an elite former member of the Coldstream Guard.
Punctuated by witty dialog and a cast of colorful characters, the movie is simply a delight, a somewhat unusual treat deriving from the early days of talky movies. Personally, I would have appreciated a bit more screen time by the likes of Ma Pettingill (Maude Eburne) and the very attractive Leila Hyams as singer Nell Kenner, who's eventually won over by the Earl of Burnstead (Roland Young), the bumbling aristocrat who 'lost' Ruggles in the first place.
Though it's mostly Laughton's picture, the energy that drives it forward comes primarily from actor Charles Ruggles, who defies all the stuffy convention of his society aspiring wife. The back story of their getting hooked up to begin with would have made an interesting tale, as opposites attracting seems a far cry for this couple to have invented. Egbert's raucous approach to having a good time in the company of friends and fellow travelers proves the perfect counterpoint to Marmaduke Ruggles' original stilted view of his station in life, one which he eventually comes to terms with by answering the question - "Am I someone or am I not?"
Punctuated by witty dialog and a cast of colorful characters, the movie is simply a delight, a somewhat unusual treat deriving from the early days of talky movies. Personally, I would have appreciated a bit more screen time by the likes of Ma Pettingill (Maude Eburne) and the very attractive Leila Hyams as singer Nell Kenner, who's eventually won over by the Earl of Burnstead (Roland Young), the bumbling aristocrat who 'lost' Ruggles in the first place.
Though it's mostly Laughton's picture, the energy that drives it forward comes primarily from actor Charles Ruggles, who defies all the stuffy convention of his society aspiring wife. The back story of their getting hooked up to begin with would have made an interesting tale, as opposites attracting seems a far cry for this couple to have invented. Egbert's raucous approach to having a good time in the company of friends and fellow travelers proves the perfect counterpoint to Marmaduke Ruggles' original stilted view of his station in life, one which he eventually comes to terms with by answering the question - "Am I someone or am I not?"