Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Terry's Grade: A-

After sitting through the two Marx Brothers movies on the 100 Years list, I wasn't really looking forward to another black-and-white comedy. I'd read some description of this movie somewhere, but I really wasn't prepared for what I was about to see. In Roger Ebert's review of Forrest Gump (which I happened to see half of last night, not by my own choice) he isn't quite sure how to describe the film:

I've never met anyone like Forrest Gump in a movie before, and for that matter I've never seen a movie quite like "Forrest Gump." Any attempt to describe him will risk making the movie seem more conventional than it is, but let me try. It's a comedy, I guess. Or maybe a drama. Or a dream.

"Sullivan's Travels" isn't as genre-defying as Forrest Gump (or maybe it is: it's hard for me to tell, and it's hard for me to imagine how this movie would have been perceived in 1941), but it definitely walks a line between comedy and drama. The message of the movie is echoed in its execution. It's a movie about a film director (Sullivan) who sets out to make an epic about poverty for the masses, but ultimately realizes that the masses would probably rather watch a comedy that makes them laugh than an epic that reminds them how much their lives suck. And similarly the movie itself seems fundamentally structured like a comedy but crosses into drama at points, at will.

I liked this movie a lot more than I expected to, and I think I would have liked it even if I'd had higher expectations. It's epic without being long, and the film is really made in the final act. The happy ending is fully expected and it works because this is a movie about movies, and there's no question (at least in 1941) that movies (both comedies and dramas) have happy endings.

The ending of the movie hinges on an unapologetic faith in the fact that celebrities get favorable treatment in the courts, which is kind of funny (or sad). These days people get upset about the fact that Lindsay Lohan only serves four hours out of a 30-day jail sentence, and there seems to be a general sense that even though celebrities get special treatment, they really shouldn't. In Sullivan's Travels, it's a universal truth that celebrities not only get special treatment, they deserve it.

A movie from different times, definitely, but very interesting and entertaining to watch. I'm not an expert on 40's cinema, so I've never heard of either of the leads before, but they're pretty to look at.  Sullivan is played by Joel McCrea, and his love interest (whose character is actually named "The Girl"!) is played by Veronica Lake. Sullivan's two servants are hilarious, as is the entire troupe that follows him in a decked-out trailer (did it have a cell phone? in 1941?) on the road at the start of his journey.

I think this movie worked so well for me because I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt; any time it felt cliched or overdone, I just assumed that was the film giving the nod to the filmmaking conventions of the day.

Also worth noting is that Sullivan works on a script called "O Brother Where Art Thou?" which is of course the inspiration not only for the title but also for parts of the story and feel of the Coen brothers' film.