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Classic films in focus: Sullivan's Travels (1941)
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DVD cover art - Criterion Collection
Movies about the business of making movies can often be dark, cynical affairs, with Sunset Boulevard (1950) as the ultimate classic example. Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (1941) is a different reflection on Hollywood, a comedy about the value of making comedies, especially during troubled times. Funny and sincere, Sullivan's Travels is a wonderful film, with great performances and a compelling story that captures both the bleak reality of the Great Depression and comedy's exuberant power to make people laugh in spite of their suffering.
Sturges creates a double of himself in the character of John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), a director of comedies who yearns to be taken seriously. Sullivan wants to make O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a grim drama about poverty and hardship, but his studio bosses quickly point out that Sullivan knows nothing about being poor or being in trouble. Sullivan agrees, but his solution to this problem is to dress himself as a bum and wander the country, which nearly gives his entire circle of associates a heart attack. Along the way, Sullivan picks up a companion, a nameless young woman played by Veronica Lake. As Sullivan points out, "There's always a girl in the picture," and this one insists on joining the roving director in his travels. Together they experience life on the road, until a twist of circumstances plunges Sullivan into more trouble than he ever imagined possible.
Joel McCrea is just marvelous as Sullivan. He's a big, friendly looking guy, manly but not hard; it's easy to understand why everyone who knows Sullivan loves him. Veronica Lake is a tiny porcelain doll next to McCrea, but she holds her own beautifully, demonstrating a gift for comedy that ought to have brought her a better career than she ultimately had. As glamorous as she is with her famous hairstyle and carefully made up face, she's even more lovable in her hobo outfit. With that distracting hair out of sight and the make up gone, we get to see a very different side of the actress, a real person, vulnerable and almost childlike, with a deft sense of timing and incredible appeal. Reliable Sturges regulars make up much of the rest of the cast, including William Demarest, Robert Warwick, Jimmy Conlin, Robert Grieg, and Victor Potel. Conlin in particular has a great character part in the role of the prison trusty.
Despite the comic nature of the film and its message about the importance of comedy, Sullivan's Travels does manage to show some of the depth of suffering that took place during the Depression. We see the homeless, impoverished people lined up for soup, sleeping in great heaps on the floors of crowded rooms, and listening stony faced or half asleep while fire and brimstone preachers make them a captive audience for their stern sermons. There is nothing "fun" about it; Sullivan and the girl are just lucky that they can finally quit the whole experiment when things get too tough, a luxury that we realize those huddled masses do not have. The prison scenes are also interesting as social commentary; they recall I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) to some degree, although, as the trusty rightly points out, their gang boss does take them to the picture show. It's a key concession for Sullivan because that is where his revelation about the power of comedy finally occurs.
A few things about that climactic scene are worth noting. The depiction of the African American church and its congregation is very sensitive; Sturges presents the people gathered there as sympathetic, generous human beings, neither tokens nor servants (contrast that with the more typical scene of the cook in the mobile kitchen earlier in the movie). Being oppressed themselves, they extend friendly compassion to the prisoners and invite them to watch the film at the church with them. The movie that unites the gathered viewers is the 1934 Disney short, Playful Pluto. Even though the church can only present the movie as a silent show, with a pianist providing music, the innocent joy of the picture still reaches its audience. We see the worn, marked faces of the people lighten and change as they roar with laughter, and Sullivan sees them, too; when he joins them his laugh marks his great moment of epiphany.
In 2000, the Coen brothers would pay tribute to Sullivan's Travels by naming their movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? The tremendously successful picture, starring George Clooney as the hero of a southern take on the Odyssey, did not end up being the kind of film John L. Sullivan thought he wanted to make, but instead it, too, is a comedy, and it's very much the kind of movie Preston Sturges would probably approve. People who love the Coen brothers film should absolutely adore Sullivan's Travels. Both movies understand the importance of making people laugh.
See also:
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
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