I wonder if anyone has done a study of why some movies are remembered while others are forgotten. I'm sure it has something to do with who is in a particular film, who directed it, and the like. What I can't understand is why this film, shot in 1935, the same year as the execrable Alice Adams, isn't beloved as one of the all-time great comedies. The direction is crisp and nearly perfect, the script is packed with great jokes and genuine human interaction, and all of the performances are memorable. However, I had to drive nearly 30 minutes to find it, and I only watched it because it was on my Best Picture Nominees list. I definitely wasn't looking forward to it, but I am surely glad I did.

Ruggles (Charles Laughton) is the stuffy butler of an English Duke, Burnstead (Roland Young). He's the kind of movie butler who is always ready with a tray to catch tipping glasses. His gaze rests somewhere just above most people's heads. He goes around with a perpetual look of solemn resignation. This resignation extends to when Burnstead loses him in a game of poker to a hick cowboy from America named Egbert Floud (Charles Ruggles), who likes to dress in checks. Burnstead sadly tells him, though a splitting hangover, that "You really only lost by one eight" as a form of explanation. While Ruggles doesn't seem all that happy to go with his new employer, he agrees out of dedication to his longtime boss.

Egbert Floud is a stereotypical American hick. He dresses in awful suits, has a handlebar mustache, and says things like "tarnation" and "gee whillikers." It is obvious from Ruggles' reaction that he is disgusted with his new boss, but he reserves special enmity to Effie (Mary Boland), Egbert's shrill wife who thinks she is more classy than she is. For the duration of their stay in Paris, she assigns Ruggles as a sort of watchman over Egbert, who likes to drink and howl at the moon. This leads to the funniest scene in the film, and perhaps one of the funniest scenes in classic comedies. Egbert has convinced Ruggles to have a few drinks with him and his cowboy friend. Ruggles does so out of his sense of servitude. The sight of the crisp and clean Ruggles attempting to act sober had me doubled over with laughter. It's something you really just have to see. The bemused little smile on his face, with his eyes elevated in a caricature of his usual deference, as he tiptoed carefully around like he was afraid the bricks in the sidewalk were moving... It was priceless.

Anyway, the trio return to Red Gap, a cowtown in Washington where the Flouds live. Egbert's penchant for calling everyone "Colonel" leads to a series of mistaken identity mishaps that result in everyone thinking Ruggles served with the British Army in Africa. He attempts to correct them, but not very enthusiastically, because he kind of likes the attention. He quickly learns that America is a place where he has a chance of being on a level playing field with everyone else, and the thought of returning to servitude in England stops looking so good.

The film is a little strong in its pro-America rhetoric, but it does lead to the most powerful scene. Ruggles is at a bar, and he mentions that he was inspired by "what Lincoln said at Gettysburg." Someone asks what Lincoln said, and nobody in the bar can remember. Starting in a whisper, Ruggles recites the Gettysburg Address, slowly gaining volume as the bar patrons listen with rapt attention. Sure, it sounds a little corny, but it sent chills down my back.

The film is pretty equal with the targets for its comedy. English stuffiness and American gung-ho nationalism are pilloried, but the idea that America is a place where everyone is equal wins out in the end. It recalls an innocent patriotism that wasn't yet tainted with Cold War bitterness, and the entire film was a refreshing return to an altogether nicer time.