Ruggles of Red Gap - 1935

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Edward Dmytryk, the film's editor, said that Charles Laughton became so emotional during the scene in the saloon where he recites the Gettysburg Address that it took director Leo McCarey 1-1/2 days to complete shooting it.

While rehearsing for this movie, Charles Laughton was hospitalized for several weeks for a rectal abscess.

Nazi Germany banned the release of any German-dubbed version of this film because of the Gettysburg Address speech.

Charles Laughton referred to his reading of the "Gettysburg Address" in the film as "one of the most moving things that ever happened to me" Laughton recited the address to the cast and crew of Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) on the last day of shooting on Catalina Island and again on the set of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939).

According to the autobiography of Elsa Lanchester, Charles Laughton's wife, Paramount bought the story and appointed Leo McCarey as director at Laughton's request. Before the film began shooting, Lanchester states, Laughton worked with McCarey and the film's writers on the script, and hired an old friend, 'Arthur MacRae', who later became a playwright in England, to add the "necessary Englishness" of Ruggles.

The original Broadway production of "Ruggles of Red Gap" by Harrison Rhoades opened at the Fulton Theater on Decemebr 25, 1915 and ran for 33 performances.

Cast of Ruggles of Red Gap

Charles Laughton ... Marmaduke Ruggles
Mary Boland ... Effie Floud
Charles Ruggles ... Egbert Floud (billed as Charlie Ruggles)
ZaSu Pitts ... Prunella Judson
Roland Young ... George Vane Bassingwell, the Earl of Burnstead
Leila Hyams ... Nell Kenner
Maude Eburne ... 'Ma' Pettingill
Lucien Littlefield ... Charles Belknap-Jackson
Leota Lorraine ... Mrs. Charles Belknap-Jackson
James Burke ... Jeff Tuttle
Dell Henderson ... Sam, bartender (as Del Henderson)
Clarence Wilson ... Jake Henshaw, reporter