REGENT THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 198, 24 August 1935, Page 11

REGENT THEATRE

“RUGGLES OF RED GAP.” Charles Laughton gives a superb comedy performance in “Ruggles of Red Gap,” the hilarious new Him which will be screened at three sessions at the Regent Theatre to-day. It is the actor’s favourite role on stage and screen. Not only is it one of the most genuinely moving pictures to have reached the screen, but it is riotous comedy, directed by Leo AlcCarey, who has handled all the film appearance.-. of the Marx Brothers. But m spite of the laughs, which are numerous and long, the film ha« the wistful undercurrent of all true clowning. The story of ‘•Ruggles of Red Gup” is somethin .i‘ n American classic, by Harry L«_ .. ho wrote “Aler lon of the Mo». 11 is the simple biography of Ruggles, an English valet of 1908, who goes ag man-servant to the little one-horse town of Red Gap, in the State Of Washington, finds his independence, and becomes a person of consequence in the town. When •‘Ruggles’’ was filmed in the silent days, with Ernest Torrence and Edward Everett Horton, it was a straightforward comedy of small town manners. It was good fun, and nothing more. The modern version is different. It is a brilliant study of a selfeffacing man-servant suddenly Hung into a country that has no inhibitions. Charles Laughton achieves a magnificent triumph of another sort to add to hig Nero and Henry VIII. From first to last he dominates the film with his polish and sureness of touch, but he also has the assistance of a splendid supporting cast. Charles Ruggles is in his element as Egbert Floud, a typical small-town American with perfect taste in check suiting-, and Alary Boland is deliciously funny as his socially-ambitious wife. Then there are Roland Young, as a somewhat ineffectual English early, Zasu Pitts, as a hopeful widow, Leila Hyams, as a eluaret entertainer, and Lucien Little field, as a family ’j/rude. Above the general excellence of the Him there stand out some notable scenes. The episode in which two raucous Americans succeed in persuading the humble Ruggles to join them in ‘‘some real drinking” on a Paris boulevarde, and their subsequent encounter with Mrs. Floud, is a perfect blond of slap-stick aud subtlety. “Plying Bodies,” a swimming spotlight, two Paramour.' newsreels, with an artistic Paramount Pictorial ami an imaginative Paramount -Colour Classic, complete a firstrate programme.