Sullivan's Travels (1941)

A director of escapist films goes on the road as a hobo to learn about life, which gives him a rude awakening.

Director:

Preston Sturges

Writer:

Preston Sturges

Stars:

Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick

2 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Joel McCrea	...	John L. Sullivan
Veronica Lake	...	The Girl
Robert Warwick	...	Mr. LeBrand
William Demarest	...	Mr. Jones
Franklin Pangborn	...	Mr. Casalsis
Porter Hall	...	Mr. Hadrian
Byron Foulger	...	Mr. Valdelle
Margaret Hayes	...	Secretary
Robert Greig	...	Sullivan's Butler
Eric Blore	...	Sullivan's Valet
Torben Meyer	...	The Doctor
Victor Potel	...	Cameraman
Richard Webb	...	Radio Man
Charles R. Moore	...	Colored Chef (as Charles Moore)
Almira Sessions	...	Ursula

Storyline

Sullivan is a successful, spoiled, and naive director of fluff films, with a heart-o-gold, who decides he wants to make a film about the troubles of the downtrodden poor. Much to the chagrin of his producers, he sets off in tramp's clothing with a single dime in his pocket to experience poverty first-hand, and gets some reality shock.

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Plot Keywords:

bindle stick | filmmaking | national film registry | falling from a train | director | 

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Taglines:

A Happy-Go Lucky Hitch-Hiker on the Highway to happiness! He wanted to see the world . . . but wound up in Lover's Lane!

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Genres:

Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 February 1942 (USA)

Also Known As:

Sullivans Reisen

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$689,665 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$2,507,000, 31 December 1941

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min 85 min (TV premiere)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the airplane scene, the author of the book "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" is shown to be "Sinclair Beckstein", an amalgamation of the names of authors Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and John Steinbeck.

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Goofs

In the scene where Sullivan is in bed with a cold the girl sits next to him on the bed, she shifts between being at higher level with him and then same level as him from shot to shot. (This happens more than once in same scene.)

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Quotes

Burrows: You see, sir, rich people and theorists - who are usually rich people - think of poverty in the negative, as the lack of riches - as disease might be called the lack of health. But it isn't, sir. Poverty is not the lack of anything, but a positive plague, virulent in itself, contagious as cholera, with filth, criminality, vice and despair as only a few of its symptoms. It is to be stayed away from, even for purposes of study. It is to be shunned.

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Crazy Credits

In the opening credits, the Paramount logo is depicted as a seal on a package wrapped in brown paper. The package is opened, revealing a book with the title of the movie. The pages are turned to show the credits.

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Connections

Referenced in Mousehunt (1997)

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Soundtracks

William Tell Overture
Written by Gioachino Rossini (1829) (uncredited)

User Reviews

Laughter, A Precious Commodity In This Cockeyed Caravan

Sullivan's Travels is a twofer for me, it's my favorite Preston Sturges film and my favorite Joel McCrea one. It's an anti-message film, loaded with humor, with a most sublime message indeed.

Joel McCrea plays director John Sullivan who's tired of making silly comedies and musicals for his studio. He wants to make films of social significance with a message about the troubles in today's world.

Problem is that he doesn't know anything about poverty and unemployment, he's a rich kid who's been to boarding school. So off he sets, several times it turns out, to discover how the other half lives.

That last time he sets out is a bit unplanned and through a combination of circumstances he winds up on a prison chain gang in some southern state. He learns some really profound lessons from that experience.

But that's the serious side of Sullivan's Travels. Before that the film has some really gut splitting funny moments like McCrea learning about the speed of a whippet tank, being accused of stealing his own car. But my favorite is when he falls in the clutches of spinsters Elmira Sessions and Esther Howard. McCrea sets out to learn about poverty and deprivation and the two sisters see him as the answer to some poverty and deprivation they've been suffering for some time. Maybe the chain gang didn't look so bad.

Veronica Lake in her memoirs said that one of the films she enjoyed most was Sullivan's Travels where she plays an disillusioned Hollywood hopeful who befriends the tramp McCrea without knowing who he really is. The following year Lake would be paired with Alan Ladd who was closer to her height. She said McCrea was a kind and decent man and wonderful to work with. The disparity of their height was the source of some amusement and some problems for Preston Sturges. Lake was a tiny thing, it was why she was teamed with Alan Ladd, and McCrea was well over six feet tall. Check the shots of them together, very rarely will you see them standing side by side.

Sturges used a lot of his regular company of players. My two favorites in the supporting cast are Robert Grieg and Edward Blore who are McCrea's butler and valet. Both turn out to be wise men in their warnings to their boss about this folly he is undertaking.

It's been said that Sullivan's Travels is supposed to be the anti-Frank Capra film about messages. I'm not sure Capra saw it that way. If you look at the portion of the film when Sullivan falls into this unfamiliar universe of the chain gang, it's very similar to what George Bailey was experiencing in that parallel universe he was sent to in It's A Wonderful Life. I think Sturges and Capra would find a lot of common ground in the messages of It's A Wonderful Life and Sullivan's Travels.