148. Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Directed By Preston Sturges

Synopsis

Film director decides to bum it when he is researching his future project named O Brother Where Art Thou. In the process he meets Veronica Lake, a down on her luck actress and together they bum it. Eventually Sullivan goes to jail for a cirme he did commit, but when they find out he is rich he goes free! Yay!

Review

This is a film that has its ideological good and bad points. On the good side it is one of the few positive portrayals of the black community of the time, as compassionate people, it also explores the suffering of the "tramps" on freight trains. On the not so positive side it seems to be an attempt to justify low-brow comedy as the way to better help those down on their luck instead of making politically charged films. This just seems quite stupid.

As a film irrespective of meaning, it is quite a good one, not only it is quite funny but it also manages to defy the Production Code. There are a lot of double entendres and the director seems to get away with a lot of stuff that he really shouldn't have been able to. This is a good thing. There is also a couple of occasions when the fourth wall is soundly broken here, this is not a very common thing in early 40's films and therefore it is interesting to see it here.

In the end Sullivan's Travels is an interesting but ideologically dubious picture which seems like a pretty well made cop out on the gagging of directors when it comes to political statements.


Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

"Oh Brother, Where Art Thou"'

The title of Sullivan's unrealized dream project has resurfaced in several other works.


A 1991 episode of The Simpsons is entitled "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?", and features Homer's half-brother Herb, who goes from being CEO of a major car manufacturer to a hobo.

In the 1993 film Amos & Andrew, Samuel L. Jackson's character has won the Pulitzer Prize for writing a play called O Brother, Where Art Thou?

The Coen brothers' 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? borrows the title and there are many plot similarities to Sullivan's Travels.

References to the film


A 1995 episode of Due South, titled Witness, shows this film being shown in a prison, where Fraser has had himself incarcerated in order to protect both his partner Ray and the husband of a witness in a murder trial, both incarcerated at the prison.

In Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon, Steve Martin's character, a horror movie producer who experiences a revelation and decides to make high quality movies following a mugging, recommends that his friend check out Sullivan's Travels.



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