Sullivan's Travels - Criterion Collection
starring: Eric Blore, William Demarest, Byron Foulger, Robert Greig, Porter Hall
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Movie DVD
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.
Instead of capitulating, Sullivan sets off disguised as a tramp, ready to meet life's crueler lessons face-to-face--albeit followed at a discreet distance by a motor home filled with studio handlers and reporters. His ludicrous odyssey may give the boy director no real insight, but it gives Sturges the chance to inject some reliably fine gags and a romantic subplot featuring the luminous Veronica Lake. It's at this juncture that Sturges the writer's darker objective throws a jolting shift in tone. Suffice it to say that just when a comic, upbeat denouement seems imminent, Sullivan travels instead from the sunlit California of the comedy's early reels toward a darker, relentlessly downbeat world influenced more by the social realism of the movies the hero desperately wants to make. By the final reel, Sturges has flirted with real tragedy, turning his conclusion into a meditation on his own seemingly carefree, dizzily comic art.--Sam Sutherland
Movie DVD
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.
Instead of capitulating, Sullivan sets off disguised as a tramp, ready to meet life's crueler lessons face-to-face--albeit followed at a discreet distance by a motor home filled with studio handlers and reporters. His ludicrous odyssey may give the boy director no real insight, but it gives Sturges the chance to inject some reliably fine gags and a romantic subplot featuring the luminous Veronica Lake. It's at this juncture that Sturges the writer's darker objective throws a jolting shift in tone. Suffice it to say that just when a comic, upbeat denouement seems imminent, Sullivan travels instead from the sunlit California of the comedy's early reels toward a darker, relentlessly downbeat world influenced more by the social realism of the movies the hero desperately wants to make. By the final reel, Sturges has flirted with real tragedy, turning his conclusion into a meditation on his own seemingly carefree, dizzily comic art.--Sam Sutherland
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- 3.5 stars out of 4
The Bottom Line:
A delightful comedy and wicked send-up of Hollywood that doesn't seem dated despite being 75+ years old, Sullivan's Travels is witty, clever, enjoyable, and memorable.
Rating: 
- Sound didn't work
I love this old movie, it's funny, but the sound only works on the computer, not in a dvd player, and I tried 2 dvd players
Rating: - Intriguing Parable
"Sullivan's Travels" is a prime example of a writer-director, Preston Sturges, being on the top of his game.The film is a quirky odyssey of a misguided movie director who wants to experience poverty so he can make the great American movie.At first, Sullivan controlls his experiences as a hobo and comes away dissatisfied with the results.It's only when poverty is foisted on him with disastrous results that Sullivan sees the downfall of method directing."Sullivan's Travels" is a hard film to ... Read More
Rating: - Great Film by Great Film Director!
This is a wonderful film which was the basis for O'Brother, Where Art Thou? by the Coen Brothers years later.A wealthy film director decides that his comedies are trivial and he must make an "important" film about the lowest classes in the United States.He poses as a hobo and travels California to get to know the lowest classes, at one point meeting Veronica Lake.His lark takes a turn towards reality when he loses his money and ID and ends up truly living the life of a hobo including time on ... Read More
Rating: - Farce, Satire, and Despair: An Unexpected and Remarkable Film
Preston Sturges (1898-1959) had a long career, but he was on a roll in the early 1940s, and he is best recalled for the handful of films he created between about 1940 and 1944.Among these is SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, which combined broad comedy with stark drama to create an unexpectedly dark satire.Although some critics admired it, the film was not widely popular at the time; today, however, many consider it his masterpiece.
The film begins as a wickedly funny poke at Hollywood.Sullivan ... Read More
- 3.5 stars out of 4The Bottom Line:
A delightful comedy and wicked send-up of Hollywood that doesn't seem dated despite being 75+ years old, Sullivan's Travels is witty, clever, enjoyable, and memorable.
- Sound didn't workI love this old movie, it's funny, but the sound only works on the computer, not in a dvd player, and I tried 2 dvd players
- Intriguing Parable"Sullivan's Travels" is a prime example of a writer-director, Preston Sturges, being on the top of his game.The film is a quirky odyssey of a misguided movie director who wants to experience poverty so he can make the great American movie.At first, Sullivan controlls his experiences as a hobo and comes away dissatisfied with the results.It's only when poverty is foisted on him with disastrous results that Sullivan sees the downfall of method directing."Sullivan's Travels" is a hard film to ... Read More
- Great Film by Great Film Director!This is a wonderful film which was the basis for O'Brother, Where Art Thou? by the Coen Brothers years later.A wealthy film director decides that his comedies are trivial and he must make an "important" film about the lowest classes in the United States.He poses as a hobo and travels California to get to know the lowest classes, at one point meeting Veronica Lake.His lark takes a turn towards reality when he loses his money and ID and ends up truly living the life of a hobo including time on ... Read More
- Farce, Satire, and Despair: An Unexpected and Remarkable FilmPreston Sturges (1898-1959) had a long career, but he was on a roll in the early 1940s, and he is best recalled for the handful of films he created between about 1940 and 1944.Among these is SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, which combined broad comedy with stark drama to create an unexpectedly dark satire.Although some critics admired it, the film was not widely popular at the time; today, however, many consider it his masterpiece.
The film begins as a wickedly funny poke at Hollywood.Sullivan ... Read More
