Sullivan's Travels
Written & Directed by Preston Sturges
Review by Robin Russin

In these down economic times a great comedy can be a wonderful thing.  With than in mind, writer-director Preston Sturges' 1941 masterpiece, Sullivan's Travels, is perhaps the best comedy ever made to deal with the pain of tough times and the need for entertainment. Yes, I'm actually recommending a film made over seventy years ago for its intelligent, hilarious, contemporary relevance.  A temperamental director famous for his ego, his last minute script drafts and his run-ins with his studio bosses, Preston Sturges was one of the great film satirists of the 30's and 40's. The year before this film, Sturges won the first ever Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with his script for The Great McGinty, and he was nominated for two more in 1944.

Sturges' reputation has in recent years been somewhat overshadowed by those of other directors who came to prominence at the time such as Frank Capra and Billy Wilder, but his work definitely stands the test of time. Here, the title is a riff on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels: Joel Mccrea plays Sullivan, or Sully, a lightweight but hugely successful Hollywood director of comedies who, in light of the Great Depression, has decided he needs to make a "serious" film based on a novel titled O Brother, Where Art Thou? And yes, that's where the Coen brothers got the title for their 2000 movie. In order to accomplish his goal, he decides to go undercover as a poor tramp in order to learn what poverty and hard times are really like. Little does he know that the adventure he is about to begin will take him from one of the most privileged positions in society to one of the least.

Naturally, when he proposes his plan the suits at the studio are unhappy. They want him to continue to be their cash cow:

Sullivan: This picture is an ANSWER to Communists. It shows we're awake and not dunking our heads in the sand like a bunch of ostriches. I want this picture to be a commentary on modern conditions, stark realism, the problems that confront the average man.
Lebrand: But with a little sex.
Sullivan: A little, but I don't want to stress it. I want this picture to be a document. I want to hold a mirror up to life. I want this to be a picture of dignity--a true canvas of the suffering of humanity.
Lebrand: But with a little sex.
Sullivan: With a little sex in it.
Hadrian: How about a nice musical?
Sullivan: How can you talk about musicals at a time like this? With the world committing suicide, with corpses piling up in the street, with grim death gargling at you from every corner, with people slaughtered like sheep!
Hadrian: Maybe they'd like to forget that.
Sullivan: Then why do they hold this one over for a fifth week at the Music Hall? For the ushers?
Hadrian: It died in Pittsburgh.
Lebrand: Like a dog.
Sullivan: What do they know in Pittsburgh?
Lebrand: They know what they like.
Sullivan: If they knew what they liked, they wouldn't live in Pittsburgh.

That's just a taste of the smart, snappy patter that energizes the whole film  (and thanks to Tim Dirk of filmsite.org for already transcribing all that dialog so I didn't have to - for those who don't know about it, filmsite.org is the best and most comprehensive resource on the web for classic films).

Along the way, Sully meets iconic screen goddess Veronica Lake, here at her most radiant as a character known simple as "The Girl". A down-on-her-luck actress who accompanies him on his misadventures, Lake is by turns innocent, impish, boyish and sultry, as The Girl evolves from Sully's ally to his best friend, from a platonic to a romantic lover, and finally to the one who saves his life. It's a knockout performance by a knockout bombshell of the era. Lake's "Peekaboo" hairstyle defined "The Look" for women at the time, so much so that the U.S. government actually asked her to change her coiffure in order to prevent workplace accidents among women newly employed in war-time factories whose vision would be impaired by the style.

Sully's misadventures form not only a comprehensive, parodic look at a whole range of film genres: road trip, car chase, social farce, prison chain-gang, romantic comedy, etc., but a genuine exploration of the possibilities and limitations of movies as Important Documents. Just as he balances comedy and drama, Sturges manages both to hammer home producer Irving Thalberg's famous dictum, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union," while also successfully using the film to send a number of deeply moving messages about social need, true friendship, the unromantic truth about crime and poverty, and about the need for some light in the darkest of times. One of the most interesting sequences, from a thematic and historical point of view, is the scene where the white prisoners are allowed to attend a film screening at a black church.

Another element that energizes this film about these darkest of times is the spectacular cinematography by John Seitz, who went on to become one of the premier cameramen of the noir era, shooting such classics as Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard. Seitz's photography perfectly visualizes the shifts in location and tone, from the brightly lit sequences in the studio, to Beverly Hills and an absurd yet exciting car chase, to a grim, low-key approach to the poorhouse and the genuinely horrifying night sequence on the train tracks that would become the emblematic look of film noir.

Part of what give this movie such a contemporary feel is its mercilessly perceptive look at the culture of celebrity and the often apparently patronizing attitude of those in the entertainment business toward those who inhabit the "real world," even if that attitude is motivated by generous or charitable intentions. Sully is a decent, lovable guy, but he's also a fool who hasn't got a clue about what it's like to be in despair - not until he finds himself the victim of real violence and lost identity, and not just the safe, brief undercover charade he had planned. Of course there's a happy ending, but it's shaded by the realization that well-intentioned messages may in fact be worthless in a genuinely distressed world, and that perhaps the role of the entertainer is not to imitate but to help alleviate the pain of the human condition, even if only by means of a dose of laughter.