Sullivan's Travels - Criterion Collection

Starring:Eric Blore, William Demarest, Byron Foulger, Robert Greig, Porter Hall, Margaret Hayes, Esther Howard, Veronica Lake, Joel McCrea, Torben Meyer, Charles R. Moore, Frank Moran, Franklin Pangborn, Victor Potel, Georges Renavent, Harry Rosenthal, Almira Sessions, Robert Warwick, Richard Webb
Studio: Criterion
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video
Writer-director Preston Sturges's third feature, 1941's Sullivan's Travels, remains the antic auteur's most ambitious screen effort. Having added the producer's stripe to his duties, Sturges combines breezy romantic comedy, arch Hollywood satire, and social essay into a single, screwball story line.

The titular pilgrim is John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), an Ivy League grad who's enjoyed a meteoric rise as the director behind escapist movies like Ants in Your Pants of 1938, but is now determined to raise his sights toward more exalted, serious-minded cinematic art. His proposed breakthrough, portentously titled O Brother, Where Art Thou?, elicits a studio response closer to "Oh, brother," given the director's utter lack of first-hand experience on the wrong side of the tracks.

Amazon.com essential video

Writer-director Preston Sturges's third feature, 1941's Sullivan's Travels, remains the antic auteur's most ambitious screen effort. Having added the producer's stripe to his duties, Sturges combines breezy romantic comedy, arch Hollywood satire, and social essay into a single, screwball story line.

The titular pilgrim is John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), an Ivy League grad who's enjoyed a meteoric rise as the director behind escapist movies like Ants in Your Pants of 1938, but is now determined to raise his sights toward more exalted, serious-minded cinematic art. His proposed breakthrough, portentously titled O Brother, Where Art Thou?, elicits a studio response closer to "Oh, brother," given the director's utter lack of first-hand experience on the wrong side of the tracks.

Description

This masterpiece by Preston Sturges is perhaps the finest movie-about-a-movie ever made. Hollywood director Joel McCrea, tired of churning out lightweight comedies, decides to make O Brother, Where Art Thou-a serious, socially responsible film about human suffering. After his producers point out that he knows nothing of hardship, he hits the road as a hobo. He finds the lovely Veronica Lake-and more trouble than he ever dreamed of.

Customer Reviews:

Sullivan's Travels.......2007-06-25

Widely considered the greatest of Sturges's classic 1940s films, "Sullivan's Travels" is a stunning hybrid, blending giddy slapstick and razor-sharp humor with grim, unblinking social realism. McCrea and Lake make a fun pair, comically and romantically, while Robert Greig is a hoot as Sullivan's droll butler. It's hard to imagine anyone but Sturges concocting this incisively scripted, beautifully directed Hollywood satire, which ultimately has a lot to say about the restorative power of laughter.

Great Film.......2007-06-22

Often when I watch American films, no matter the period, it feels like something is missing. Sullivan's Travel is an interesting social/class commentary as a famed Hollywood director decides to give up the silver spoon and become a hobo to discover "real" life. Fun fact: The movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" is from this movie (or at least the title) as Sully, the director, wants to make a serious picture by this name. By the end of the movie he changes his mind from making dramas and sticks with comedies as he hasn't suffered enough in life.

The Preston Sturges crew is aboard for social comentary, .......2006-05-17

satire & farce. John Sullivan is played by Joel McCrea, a light, very sucessful comedy director. In this movie about making a movie, Sullivan is determined to make a serious movie for which he is ill-equipted. He wants to explore poverty in America, get in touch with the poor, the down-trodden & the homeless accross the country. However, he has never experienced a day of need in his life. He has not & probably never will pay his dues.
To the anguish of his associates he hits the road attempting to hitch-hike out of Hollywood with 10 cents in his pocket & dressed like a hobo (with clothes borrowed from the studio's wardrobe dept.) The studio bosses fear for his safety. He has no survival skills. They follow him in a an RV & several false starts land him back in Hollywood. He encounters "the girl" played by Veronica Lake, a very definite wow. She's a failed actress also trying to get out of town. She tags along as he finally hops a freight train heading east. There the movie takes a 180 degree turn from comedy to drama. In a identity mix-up with a bum, he is arrested & the bum who has stolen his identity is killed. To the world Sullivan is dead. The real Sullivan is sentenced to years of hard labor on a prison chain gang. His real education has begun. Of course, it works out cleverly in the end. Veronica Lake, the sultry sex-kitten of Film Noir, proves she can also do slap-stick comedy. One of Sturges' best combining laugh out loud comedy & serious thought. The dvd is chock-full of extras on Sturges life & interviews.

Deserves Its Lofty Reputation.......2006-04-22

This is one of those films I keep rating higher each time I watch it.

At first I thought it was just "fair" and, frankly, overrated, but I don't think so now. I especially would recommend seeing this on the Criterion DVD version to get the best picture available. I'm not plugging that company because I think their discs are overpriced, but they do a great job giving you the best transfer of these classics you'll ever find and it made this film even better.

The story is very different: one that suddenly turns 180 degrees in the last segment. After a more lighthearted combination of drama and humor through much of the story, the film gets surprisingly rough in the last 20 minutes and is not always fun to watch and the leading man, Joel McCrea, goes through some very, very tough times.

This is one of Veronica Lake's more appealing roles and, although not a beautiful women, she's intriguing enough - especially with her fabulous long blonde hair - to make me glad I have at least one sharp-looking film of her.

Overall, this Preston Sturges-directed movie is good stuff and a classic film that deservedly still has a solid reputation.

The film that condemns itself.......2006-02-21

Of course the Criterion Collection has wonderful extras and a great transfer. The problem is the film itself.

Preston Sturges made some genuinely profound films such as The Lady Eve, Unfaithfully Yours, and Hail the Conquering Hero that are rich and complex experiences. But Sullivan's Travels is simplistic, pretentious, and false.

As the film's characters themselves point out, poverty is only intersting to the rich, whose view of it is distorted. Odd-faced character actors in dingy sets make a rich man's view of poverty and not at all related to the real thing. Sturges was one of the most highly-paid men in America, so his view of the subject matter is (like characters say in the film) based on cliche.

The climax with its chain-gang laughing at a cartoon, is pretty dopey and a fairly unconvincing argument for comedy. Sturges would do better to point to how comedy in his best films allows him to examine self-deception, angry love, role playing and a host of other themes--in other words how humor gets into the darkest and most ambigous areas of human life that "serious" drama cannot so easily reach.

This film is exactly the kind of film that Sullivan wants to make--which is why it is so overearnest and uninteresting.

If you want to see the genious of Preston Sturges, watch any of his other films (even Harold Diddlebock) in their entirety. After the first 10 minutes a simplemindedness takes over Sullivan's Travels that make makes it a dispiriting film.

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