the audience applauded

best movie i've ever seen.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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.

In a premise that sounds like it could have been used for the sitcom within a sitcom that Jerry and George develop for NBC in "Seinfeld," Charles Laughton plays a butler who journeys back to America with a touring couple when his master, played with a hilarious mumble by Roland Young, loses him in a game of poker. In America, Laughton gets a taste of what it's like when all men are created equal and nobody recognizes the difference between a servant and those whom he serves. It all breezes by in a quick and funny 90 minutes.Of course a modern-day audience realizes that the America as depicted in this film is a myth. People in America aren't treated equally and never have been, and we have our own version of a class system even if we don't call it that. But the film does nail the gregariousness and friendliness of Americans as compared to the reserve of Europe, and it feels right that most of the the Americans in the film couldn't care less that Laughton is a butler as long as he's willing to join them for a good time.Laughton gets to showcase his range as an actor, even his abilities at screwball comedy. But he's outshone by the supporting cast around him, notably Charlie Ruggles and Maude Eburne in addition to the already mentioned Young. The funniest scene in the movie, in fact, belongs not to Laughton, but to Young when he's trying to learn how to play the drums."Ruggles of Red Gap" was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 1935 when the Academy allowed a whopping 12 films to compete for the top prize.Grade: A

CHARLES LAUGHTON plays a staid British butler who is brought to western U.S.A. (which he imagines is still highly uncivilized), to act as a valet for the incorrigible hick CHARLIE RUGGLES. Indeed, Laughton is so subdued for most of his role that it's Ruggles who manages to steal their scenes together with his "Yahoos" and broadly comic playing.MARY BOLAND, as Charlie Ruggles' pretentious wife, matches him for broad comedy style while the other supporting performances are a bit more realistic. But Laughton's butler commands the spotlight in a quiet, more restrained way than usual. His expressions have endless variety and there's a gleam in his eyes when he's amused. Director Leo McCarey allows for one highly sentimental moment--which seems to be a staple of any Leo McCarey film. This time, it's Laughton reciting The Gettysburg Address in a saloon, where he captures the intense concentration of all the noisy patrons the moment he begins to recite Lincoln's address.Actually, it's a highly implausible moment but McCarey prepares the viewer for it by making it clear that everyone else in the saloon has forgotten whatever it was that Lincoln said. Still, it seems too stylized and dramatic a moment to mesh with the rest of the story, but it's meant to establish that Laughton gets what the great statesmen meant about all men being created equal.ZASU PITTS is charming and fluttery as a servant who attracts Laughton's attention and to whom he lends some culinary advice.The script lags here and there while telling a rather rambling tale about the exploits of these people, but the performances are all first rate and command the attention throughout.

It's my favorite movie. I love it beyond all reason. I have it on VHS (need DVD NOW!) as well as a still reproduction of Charles Laughton in the title role. I named one of my cats Ruggles. In other words, my recommendation is high! That said, I don't want to oversell it. While it contains some admirable themes about throwing off tradition and becoming your own person, it's above all a charming character comedy distinguished by Leo McCarey's signature style of improvisatory naturalism (particularly in comparison to the usual run of mainstream fare). Jean Renoir's famous quote about McCarey being one of the few directors who understood human beings (or words to that effect) is made clear here.While there's plenty of broad humor, my favorite scenes involve smaller, character-centered moments, such as the sly little courtship scene in which a piano-playing Leila Hyams coaches a smitten Roland Young as he attempts to accompany her on drums.It's full of colorful characters, priceless dialogue and emotionally involving story arcs. Seek it out -- if you like it one-tenth as much as I do, you'll consider your time well spent.