Wednesday Minute
No. 79 | April 21, 2010

O Preston, Where Art Thou?

Our theme this week
Films of Preston Sturges

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   The Great McGinty (1940)
Tuesday         —   The Lady Eve (1941)

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

Sullivan’s Travels is a movie about movies, sort of.  It’s about bigger things, in fact, but the Sullivan in the title is a Hollywood director and that gives director Preston Sturges a chance to get a few jabs in at his chosen profession.  With Sullivan his foil, Sturges takes aim at the kind of self-important, socio-politically correct dramas that pay faux homage to the poor.  Eventually Sullivan learns that the poor don’t want to see movies about the poor—they want to laugh.  Sturges gives as stirring and affirmative a defense of pure entertainment as you’ll find anywhere.

This is how it would look on an analogy test:  Gulliver’s Travels : Robinson Crusoe :: Sullivan’s Travels : _______.  The answer is The Grapes of Wrath.  If Swift is a rebuttal to Defoe, Sturges is a rebuttal to Steinbeck.  Sturges even gets the name in, backwards:  Sinclair Beckstein is the author of the book O Brother, Where Art Thou?  Sullivan wants to adapt it for the movies, and here’s his classic exchange with the studio boss, LeBrand, who takes the typical Hollywood slant:

Sullivan:  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 in it.
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 in it.
Sullivan (giving in):  With a little sex in it.

Sullivan sets off on foot with a dime in his pocket to discover what it’s like for the common man.  His “travels” are pretty darn funny, by any standard, but it’s not all laughs.  He meets an out-of-work actress who’s ready to call it quits, and they’re road companions for a while.  Sullivan discovers soup kitchens, a variety of hobos, and life in a labor camp after he’s convicted for assaulting a railroad worker.  Even in lampooning political films, Sturges gets in the political angle anyway, and gets the job done more effectively than a well-meaning realistic drama.

Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake give pitch-perfect performances as Sullivan and “The Girl.”  They have great rapport and are clearly meant for each other, which raises the question—since Sullivan is married, and unhappily—how can the two of them end up together?  Divorce and happy endings were taboo in those days, and Sturges engineered a very neat trick to get another one by the watchful eyes at the Hays Office.

I suppose it’s fitting to end at the beginning.  Sturges does the opposite, pulling a fast one on the audience.  The movie kicks off with an adrenalin rush, a fight scene atop a speeding train, which fades into filmdom’s famous last words:  The End.  Don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything.  Sturges is just getting started.

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Sullivan’s Travels
Preston Sturges, director
Trailer

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Sullivan’s Travels
Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake

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Sullivan’s Travels
Commentary from Christopher Guest and Michael McKean

 

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Quote of Note
Policeman:  You John L. Sullivan?
Sullivan:  What about it?
Policeman:  What’s your occupation?
Sullivan:  Motion picture director.
Policeman:  That right?
Valet:  Yes, sir.
Policeman:  Let me see your driver’s license.
Sullivan:  I haven’t got it.  You bring it?
Valet:  No, sir.
Policeman:  Driving without a license, huh?
Sullivan:  Yes, isn’t that terrible?  I suppose that calls for a dollar fine and ten minutes in jail.
Policeman:  You sure this is Sullivan?
Butler:  Oh, quite, sir.
Policeman:  What are you doing in those clothes?
Sullivan (in a tattered suit):  I just paid my income tax.
Policeman:  All right.  But you don’t drive that car without a license.
Sullivan:  Okay.  Let the girl out too, will you?  She’s getting bored in there.
Policeman:  How does the girl fit in this picture?
Sullivan:  There’s always a girl in the picture.  Haven’t you ever been to the movies?
—Policeman (Edward Hearn), Sullivan (Joel McCrea), Valet (Eric Blore), Butler (Robert Greig), Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

…58…59…60.