MovieMartyr.com - Sullivan's Travels

Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels moves at a such an astonishing fever pitch for much of its first half, that it’s unfortunate that it eventually gets bogged down a bit by a message. The film opens with an exceptionally long take in a boardroom that shows us such rapid-fire verbal sharpness that you must wonder if this is one of the greatest films ever made. For about forty minutes, mixing satire, slapstick, and farce, it might be, but the film bowls in with a dubious message that laughter is the antidote to poverty that’s laid on so thick that it undermines things a bit. The perfectly realized hijinks that had dominated the film to the midway point gives way to a sort of soggy social realism that feels far more socially responsible than realistic. Sturges never seems anything less than surefooted in his approach here and the message is there for the taking, but I am not sure that I buy it. The film’s tonal shifts are bold attempts to push drama and comedy together, but some of the dramatic elements, especially the film’s segment featuring a too-greedy vagrant, feel more like something the Hays Code tacked on, instead of intrinsic pieces of the overall picture. The ending is so neatly wrapped up that you don’t really get the impression that Sullivan, who undertakes a journey to see the common man, ever thought of the hobos and working class that he saw as anything besides the simple-minded Lilliputians that he assumed flocked to his films.

Still, it’s tough to deny that a lot of Sullivan’s Travels works. It’s no wonder that the film remains hugely influential to this day. It is obviously referenced by the Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but it’s closer in subject matter to their Barton Fink. Other films like Dr. T. & The Women, which adopts a similar tone and a lead named Sullivan Travis, are still are paying homage. Like the work of the Coen brothers, Sturges uses his cast of character actors exceptionally. The leads are fine as well, however. Joel McCrea, as Sullivan, somehow manages to make a prep-school educated film director feel like an Everyman by the film’s end. Veronica Lake, who apparently was very pregnant during the film’s shoot, manages to convey at once a sex appeal so acute that it’s humbling and off-putting and an endearing, demure approachability. It’s unfortunate that she is largely absent during the second half of the film. Much of the dialogue is insanely well written, and the film’s ably directed. The satire directed at Hollywood feels at once razor-sharp and in good fun. It’s a shame that all of Sullivan’s Travels doesn’t consistently reach the heights of the first half’s frenzy, but few movies sustain such raucousness for a scene, much less an entire feature.

***1/2

12-04-01

Jeremy Heilman