Sullivan's Travels

Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea in Sullivan's Travels

John L. Sullivan is a popular young Hollywood director of profitable but shallow comedies. Dissatisfied with his own films, he tells his studio boss, Mr. LeBrand, that he wants his next project to be a serious exploration of the plight of the downtrodden, based on the novel O Brother, Where Art Thou? LeBrand wants him to direct another lucrative comedy instead, but Sullivan refuses to give in. He wants to "know trouble" first hand, and plans to travel as a tramp so he can make a film that truly depicts the sorrows of humanity. His British butler and valet openly question the wisdom of his plan.

Sullivan dresses as a hobo and takes to the road, followed by his staff in a bus. Neither party is happy with the arrangement, and Sullivan, after trying to lose the bus in a fast-paced car chase, eventually persuades his guardians to leave him alone and arranges to rendezvous with them later in Las Vegas. However, he soon finds himself right back in Los Angeles.

There, in a diner, he meets a young struggling actress who has failed to make it in Hollywood and is just about to give up and go home. She believes he is a penniless tramp and buys him a breakfast of ham and eggs. In return for her kindness, Sullivan retrieves his car from his estate and gives her a lift. He neglects to tell his servants that he has returned, however, so they report the car stolen. Sullivan and the girl are apprehended by the police. The butler and valet arrive in the police station, Sullivan straightens things out, and he and the girl return to his mansion. After seeing how wealthy he is, the girl pushes him into his enormous swimming pool in punishment for deceiving her. However, when he insists on trying again, she goes with him, over his objections, disguised as a boy.

This time Sullivan succeeds. After riding in a cattle car, eating in soup kitchens and sleeping in homeless shelters with the girl (where another hobo steals his shoes), Sullivan finally decides he has had enough. His experiment is publicized by the studio as a huge success. The girl wants to stay with him, but on the advice of his business manager, Sullivan had married a woman solely to reduce his taxes. But he discovers that his wife cost him double what he saved, and she is in love with his business manager.

Sullivan decides to thank the homeless by handing out $5 bills, but one hobo ambushes Sullivan and steals the money. Sullivan is knocked unconscious and put in a boxcar leaving the city. The thief gets run over and killed by another train. When the mangled body is found, it turns out that this was the hobo who stole Sullivan’s shoes; a special identification card his valet had sewn into them identifies him as Sullivan.

Meanwhile, Sullivan wakes up in another city, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. A railway worker finds him and berates him for illegally entering the rail yard, shoving him. In his confused state, Sullivan hits the man with a rock, for which he is sentenced to six years in a labor camp. He gradually regains his memory. In the camp, he attends a showing of Walt Disney's 1934 Playful Pluto cartoon and is surprised to find himself laughing along with the other inmates.

Unable to convince anybody that he is Sullivan or communicate with the outside world, he comes up with a solution: after seeing his unsolved "killing" on the front page of a newspaper, he confesses to being his own killer. When his picture makes the front page, the girl recognizes him, and he is released. His "widow" has already married his business manager, so he realizes she will have to give him a divorce or be charged with bigamy. Sullivan's boss tells him he can make O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but he says the he has changed his mind. He wants to make comedies, having learned that they can do more good for the poor.

Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea

Cast notes:

• This was the sixth of ten films written by Preston Sturges in which William Demarest appeared.[4]
• Members of Sturges's unofficial "stock company" of character actors who appear in Sullivan's Travels include George Anderson, Al Bridge, Chester Conklin, Jimmy Conlin, William Demarest, Robert Dudley, Byron Foulger, Robert Greig, Harry Hayden, Esther Howard, Arthur Hoyt, J. Farrell MacDonald, Torben Meyer, Charles R. Moore, Frank Moran, Jack Norton, Franklin Pangborn, Emory Parnell, Victor Potel, Dewey Robinson, Harry Rosenthal, Julius Tannen and Robert Warwick. Eric Blore had appeared in The Lady Eve. Porter Hall would go on to appear in three other Sturges films: The Great Moment, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, Sturges's last American film.
• Preston Sturges has a cameo appearance as the film director in the scene set in a film studio where The Girl sees Sullivan's picture in the paper and recognizes him.[5]
• On the street outside the studio, The Girl almost runs into Ray Milland.[5]
• Another member of the production staff appeared in the film as well: associate producer Paul Jones appeared as "Dear Joseph", the late husband of "Miz Zeffie", in a photograph in which the man's expression changes.[5]

Paramount purchased Sturges's script for Sullivan's Travels for $6,000. He wrote the film as a response to the "preaching" he found in other comedies "which seemed to have abandoned the fun in favor of the message."[5] Sturges may have been influenced by the stories of John Garfield,[6] who lived the life of a hobo, riding freight trains and hitchhiking his way cross country for a short period in the 1930s. Sturges wrote the film with Joel McCrea in mind, but found the female lead through the casting process. Barbara Stanwyck was considered, as well as Frances Farmer.[5]

The film as released opens with a dedication:

To the memory of those who made us laugh: the motley mountebanks, the clowns, the buffoons, in all times and in all nations, whose efforts have lightened our burden a little, this picture is affectionately dedicated.

This was originally intended to be spoken by Sullivan. Sturges wanted the film to begin with the prologue: "This is the story of a man who wanted to wash an elephant. The elephant darn near ruined him."[5] Paramount contracted with the Schlesinger Corp., who made the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, to make an animated main title sequence, but this was not used in the film, if it was ever actually produced.[5]

The censors at the Hays Office had objections to the script that the studio had submitted. They felt that the word "bum" would be rejected by British censors, and warned that there should be no "suggestion of sexual intimacy" between Sullivan and The Girl in the scenes in which they are sleeping together at the mission.[5]

Sullivan's Travels went into production on May 12, 1941 and wrapped on July 22.[7] Location shooting took place in Canoga Park, San Marino, Castaic and at Lockheed Air Terminal.[5]

Veronica Lake was six months pregnant at the beginning of production, a fact she did not disclose to Sturges until filming began. Sturges was so furious that, according to Lake, he had to be physically restrained.[8] Sturges consulted with Lake's doctor to see if she could perform the part, and hired former Tournament of Roses queen Cheryl Walker as Lake's double.[5] Edith Head, Hollywood's most renowned costume designer, was tasked to find ways of concealing Lake's condition. Reportedly, Lake was disliked by a few of her co-stars. McCrea refused to work with her again, and subsequently turned down a lead role with her in I Married a Witch. Fredric March, who took the latter part, didn't much enjoy working with Lake, either.[9] However, McCrea got along famously with Sturges, and afterward presented him with a watch engraved "for the finest direction I've ever had." Sturges' assistant director, Anthony Mann, also was influenced heavily by his experience on the production.[10]

There were some minor problems during filming. Sturges had wanted to use a clip from a Charlie Chaplin film for the church scene, but was turned down by Chaplin. Lake does parody Chaplin's "Little Tramp" character earlier in the film.[5] Also, the poverty montage was scheduled to take three hours to film, but instead took seven hours. Incidents such as this may account for the film, which cost more than $689,000 to produce, going more than $86,000 over budget.[5]

The film was first screened for critics on December 4, 1941,[11] and for the public on January 15, 1942 in Detroit.[12] Its Hollywood premiere occurred two weeks later on February 12, 1942, at the Los Angeles Paramount Theatre.[13]

When the film was released, the U.S. Office of Censorship declined to approve it for export overseas during wartime, because of the "long sequence showing life in a prison chain gang which is most objectionable because of the brutality and inhumanity with which the prisoners are treated." This conformed with the office's standing policy of not exporting films that could be used for propaganda purposes by the enemy. The producers of the film declined to make suggested changes that could have altered the film's status.[5]

Sullivan's Travels was released on video in the U.S. on March 16, 1989, and re-released on June 30, 1993. The film was re-released in the UK with a restored print on May 12, 2000.[14] Criterion produced a Blu-ray version, which was released in the U.S. on April 14, 2015.[15]

"Style B" alternate theatrical poster

Sullivan's Travels was not immediately successful at the box office as were earlier Sturges films such as The Great McGinty and The Lady Eve, and received mixed critical reception. Although the review in The New York Times called the film "the most brilliant picture yet this year" and praised Sturges' mix of escapist fun with underlying significance, The Hollywood Reporter said that it lacked the "down to earth quality and sincerity which made [Sturges's] other three pictures a joy to behold" and that "Sturges...fails to heed the message that writer Sturges proves in his script. Laughter is the thing people want—not social studies." The New Yorker's review said that "anyone can make a mistake, Preston Sturges, even. The mistake in question is a pretentious number called Sullivan's Travels."[5] Nevertheless, the Times named it as one of the ten best films of 1941, and the National Board of Review nominated it as best picture of the year.

Over time, the reputation of the film has improved tremendously, and it is now considered a classic; at least one reviewer called it Sturges's "masterpiece" and "one of the finest movies about movies ever made."[3] It has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 8.66/10.[16]

Diabolique magazine said "The Girl", Veronica Lake, "is captivating, magical, and extremely sexy, whether sitting on McCrea’s lap in a bathrobe and combing his hair or walking along the road in a hobo overcoat...She wasn’t great with all her dialogue but Sturges made her spit it out at rapid-fire pace and protected her limitations. It’s a performance for the ages."[17]

In 1990, Sullivan's Travels was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." [18][19] In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it as the No. 61 Greatest American Movie of All Time. In addition, the movie's poster was ranked as No. 19 of "The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever" by Premiere. A 2010 special issue of Trains magazine ranked Sullivan's Travels 25th among the 100 greatest train movies.[20]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2000: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs – No. 39[21]
• 2006: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers – No. 25[22]
• 2007: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 61[23]

The two Writers Guilds of America voted the screenplay for Sullivan's Travels as the 29th greatest ever written,[24] as well as the 35th funniest.[25]

The film's primary theme is best summed up in the last line of dialogue as spoken by Sullivan: "There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that's all some people have? It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan."

The scene in which the prisoners are taken to watch the 1934 Disney cartoon Playful Pluto takes place in a Southern black church; the film treats the African-American characters there with a level of respect unusual in films of the period. The Secretary of the NAACP, Walter White, wrote to Sturges:

I want to congratulate and thank you for the church sequence in Sullivan's Travels. This is one of the most moving scenes I have seen in a moving picture for a long time. But I am particularly grateful to you, as are a number of my friends, both white and colored, for the dignified and decent treatment of Negroes in this scene. I was in Hollywood recently and am to return there soon for conferences with production heads, writers, directors, and actors and actresses in an effort to induce broader and more decent picturization of the Negro instead of limiting him to menial or comic roles. The sequence in Sullivan's Travels is a step in that direction and I want you to know how grateful we are.[5]

On November 9, 1942, Lux Radio Theatre broadcast a radio adaptation of Sullivan's Travels with Ralph Bellamy in the lead role and Veronica Lake reprising her role.[5]

• In the movie's airplane scene the author of the book O Brother, Where Art Thou? is shown to be "Sinclair Beckstein", which is an amalgamation of the names of authors Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and John Steinbeck, all of whom wrote socially conscious fiction.[26] The title of Sullivan's unrealized dream project has resurfaced in several other works.
• In Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon (1991), an action-movie producer experiences a revelation after being mugged, and temporarily decides to make high-quality "life drama" movies, but soon returns to the action genre when he decides that violence is life and should be welcomed and watched. He recommends that his friend check out Sullivan's Travels, as "movies are where we get our answers to life".
• A 1991 episode of The Simpsons, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?", got its title from the film[27] and features Homer's half-brother Herb, who goes from CEO of a major car manufacturer to a hobo.
• The Coen brothers' film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) borrows the title and has many plot similarities to Sullivan's Travels; on the special-edition DVD the Coens say the film is almost what Sullivan would have ended up making after Sullivan's Travels ends.

• List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film-review aggregator website

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sullivan's Travels.

• Sullivan’s Travels essay by Julie Grossman at National Film Registry
• Sullivan's Travels at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Sullivan's Travels on IMDb
• Sullivan's Travels at the TCM Movie Database
• Sullivan's Travels at AllMovie
• Sullivan's Travels at Rotten Tomatoes
• Sullivan’s Travels: Self-Portrait in a Fun-House Mirror an essay by Stuart Klawans at the Criterion Collection
• Review by Bosley Crowther in New York Times (1942)