Ruggles of Red Gap

Ruggles is a British butler (don't you know), Red Gap is the American shack of a town he comes to work in, having been won in a poker game. After initial incomprehension, he recites Lincoln's Gettysburg address and becomes the country's greatest fan. Sounds awful? Not so; this is the archetypal film they don't make any more, partly because comedy has now grown too raucous to favour the quiet drollery of players like Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland, partly because after the '30s even McCarey himself had problems in separating sentiment from sentimentality. Laughton, as always, enjoys himself enormously; we can only follow.