Editing Ruggles of Red Gap (section)

===Gettysburg address scene===

Film historian Wes D. Gehring describes ''Ruggles of Red Gap'' as "the story of a proper British butler, lost in a poker game to a ''nouveau riche'' American, evolves into a free man."<ref>Gehring, 2005 p. 119</ref>

The origins of the film sequence arose from an event in McCarey's own life. During an alcohol-fueled social gathering, the topic of the Gettysburg Address came up; everyone agreed as to its importance, but no one present could recite a word of the iconic document.<ref>Gehring, 2005 p. 119-120</ref>

The film fully takes shape as a "populist classic" with the sequence in which Laughton, the former [[Body man|body servant]] to a wealthy English gentleman, recites the [[Gettysburg Address]], a speech delivered by [[Abraham Lincoln]] in 1863, announcing a "new birth of freedom" for the people of the American republic.<ref>Gehring, 2005 p. 119: "...Lincoln's watershed speech..." And p. 126: "...mix of populism and parody..."</ref>

Ruggles, an immigrant to the United States, delivers the speech in the Silver Dollar saloon occupied entirely by "All-American Western types." The moving content of the address comes as a revelation and a liberation to most of the denizens of Red Gap.<ref>Gehring, 2005 p. 119-120</ref>