Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Best movie of this year hands down!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

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.

The only reason I got a chance to see this movie is that Ed Norton put it on his Top 5 favorite movies list & he said the only reason he found it is because he read it in the screenplay for Barton Fink. Never heard of this movie, which is unreasonably hard to get, but it is now one of my favorites. This movie serves as a love letter to American ideals through the unwilling relocation of an old school English butler to the American West after he is lost in a poker game. Charles Laughton is naturally cartoonish, endearing, and very believable as Ruggles, who is emancipated through the experience. Leo McCarey, whose worst movie just might be the often named "American classic" An Affair to remember, delivers like the cinematic master he is. Wonderful film that everyone should see.

After being "lost" in a game of poker to a wealthy but indecorous American, gentleman's gentleman Marmaduke Ruggles finds himself in the throes of culture shock as he resettles in the wild west with his new employers. Steeped in the tradition of the European class system he is at first aghast at the lack of boundaries between servant and employer but soon begins to adapt to the land of opportunity.Ruggles of Red Gap is a non-stop good natured screwball satire that fills every minute of its running time with comic situations played with gusto by a cast of broad lovable characters. Leo Mccarey's lightening paced direction insures that there is never a dull moment as he good naturedly takes pokes at pretense, hypocrisy and ugly Americans on the continent while slyly celebrating the fruits of Democracy and the American way.Charles Laughton in the midst of a year (Bligh in Mutiny, Jalvert in Les Misrabelais) that would have made any actor's career distinguished is howlingly funny as Ruggles. Whether stiffly attempting to maintain decorum, mutely observing or getting drunk with the boys Laughton's antics remain uproariously comic. Then in the middle of all the zaniness McCarey injects sober relief by having Laughton recite Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in a bar. In the voice of Laughton it deftly avoids mawkish mood killing and soars, soberly driving home McCarey's paradoxically subversive but patriotic rights of man theme.Ably assisting Laughton's tour de force Charles Ruggles, Marie Boland, Zasu Pitts and Roland Young produce their fair share of laughs while McCarey's swift and tight direction gallops along in perfect stride. Ruggles of Red Gap is one of the best made comedies to come out of the thirties.

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.