Sullivan's Travels

Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941) Entertaining 1941 "message picture"..."with a little sex in it."

 

Big Deal studio comedy director John L. Sullivan has a case of "Hamlet disease,"* and wants the studio to bankroll a serious picture (for a change!) about poverty—entitled "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?"**—but while the brass haggle over whether they want to do it or not to appease their big bread-winner, "Sully" (Joel McCrea) decides to dress the part and go amongst the poor and down-trodden for a little research. After all, he's a rich Hollywood mucky-muck—what does he know about poverty (other than he's against it)? Early on in his plan, a girl (Veronica Lake, playing "The Girl"), who is down on her own luck trying to get acting jobs, uses her last thirty cents to buy the poor schlub some breakfast at a diner. Sully gets the guilts, and tells her of his idea, and ropes her into the scheme.

The two then skip the studio publicity-mill buttinski-bus that's been set up to track their moves as they spend the next few days hopping freights, eating at soup kitchens, and sleeping at flop-houses. The movie fairly careens like the Keystone Cops with changes of tone from earnest pathos to roaring comedy: the poor are saintly (though one thief is particularly verminous), while the rich Beverly Hills folk, they are a foolish bunch. And (one must admit) Sully's "experiment" falls a bit short in the stakes department when he and The Girl can easily abandon it at a moment's whim (although Sturges does insure a more authentic experience, just to ensure that his point gets made).

Ultimately, the film seems just a tad self-justifying in that a comedy film-maker is making a comedy about why comedies are needed. One would think that Sully could read the trades and see how well his movies were doing and come to the same conclusion. But, the point is made—and made often—that the well-to-do Hollywood types haven't a clue about a world that isn't butlered and chauffered and catered...to their every need.

But let's not quibble. The movie is a great construction with Sturges' rock solid writing delivering a punch or punch-line every third line or so, all delivered at a break-neck pace by his stable of regulars and McCrea, whose sense of light comedy was impeccable, and Veronica Lake, who was never better than the breezy blonde who goes along for the ride.

Sullivan's Travels is the brightest star of the Preston Sturges series of Paramount comedies. If it can lead one to seeking out the rest of this too-overlooked writer-director's films, then that's gravy.

Sullivan's Travels was voted into the United States National Film Registry in 1990 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is all that and also damned entertaining. And sometimes that's all you can hope for in this cockeyed caravan.

 

* When a comedian yearns to play Hamlet to prove his range...and be taken seriously.

** Yes, this is where the Coen Brothers got it.

Hey, that's Preston Sturges in the background playing the director!

The Great McGinty

The Great McGinty (Preston Sturges, 1940) Guy walks into a bar in a "banana republic" and tries to ventilate his own head. Turns out he's an embezzler on the lam who's made one mistake and wants to end it all. The bartender manages to stop him, but doesn't give him any sympathy. 

He thinks he has problems? He used to be Governor of the State!

The rest of the movie is Sturges' tall tale told in flashback that turns around the bar's doubters and the rolling eyes. 

Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy at his most engaged and energetic) is a bum. He finds out that if he votes for a candidate for Mayor at a polling place, the candidates' "political advisers" will pay him two bucks. Sounds good to McGinty. 

But if he votes for the guy at 37 different polling places, he'll get 74 bucks! The politico's can't believe it. They're only petty criminals. They don't think "big" like McGinty.

So, after a brief turner as a mob "collector," he goes to the next logical career step—politics! Once Mayor, McGinty starts shaking down city fathers and handing out favored construction contracts, his "tough guy" tactics backed up by mayoral power. And nobody can argue with him, save the mob boss (Akim Tamiroff) with whom McGinty regularly has knock-down-drag-outs.

Oh, and his "married-to-look-good-for-the-lady-voters" wife/former secretary (Muriel Angelus), she gives him a kick in the pants every so often. But, when McGinty becomes governor, she talks him into doing some good for a change, and...well, you know that the old saw that "no good deed goes unpunished." That saw may be rusty but it still has teeth.

The characters are Dickensian, the fable is Aesop turned on his toga. And drama turned on its head. A tragedy is a good man who does something wrong. And in Sturges' street-wise script, tragedy befalls a bad man who does the right thing. No moral codes are being broken—McGinty is taken down. But Sturges' view is a cock-eyed, if soberly cock-eyed, story of moral growth and the trouble it can cause, especially if you're working for the people.

Told with brass and a wisenheimer humor, it's a criss-crossed morality play told from the other side—an anti-Capra film, told with that director's straight-forwardness, but with more of a knockabout flavor. 

This was the first film Sturges directed—he sold Paramount Studios the screenplay for $10 on the proviso that he directed it-and it has sophisticated ideas (which seem quite contemporary) told in a scruffy manner. If there's pretentiousness, it's all in the background and the sub-text, buried where no one can nod sagely at it. One gets the impression Sturges would look at a movie aiming for the handkerchiefs and blow it a raspberry. 

Before the year fades away, we're going to be looking at a lot more Preston Sturges, a director who doesn't get near enough acknowledgement in the movie history books. There's not enough Sturges in my head, and we're going to rectify that.