Movie Discussion: Sullivan's Travels (1941) by Preston Sturges
Details
Tired of churning out lightweight comedies, John Sullivan (played by Joel McCrea) sets out to film an ambitious masterpiece — a serious, socially responsible film about "the suffering of humanity". After his producers point out that he knows nothing of hardship, Sullivan hits the road disguised as a hobo to learn about Depression-era America’s “forgotten men” and make his upcoming drama more authentic. En route to enlightenment, he meets a lovely, no-nonsense young woman (Veronica Lake) — and more trouble than he ever dreamed of. This comic masterpiece by Preston Sturges is among the finest satires of the film industry and a high-water mark in the career of one of Hollywood's most revered funnymen.
"Sturges' most deeply ambiguous and contradictory film. Though much of his work subtly underscores the discrepancies between varying levels of the socioeconomic strata, Sullivan's Travels explicitly centers on issues of upper crust naiveté and class guilt." (MUBI)
"Sullivan's Travels is both screwball comedy and socially conscious melodrama — as well as a satire of socially conscious melodrama, and a serious apologetic for crowd-pleasing comedy." (Rotten Tomatoes)
"To understand the depths of Sturges's reflexivity, nearly each scene requires a double take where what's being stated by the film's characters is taken bluntly in one sense, but read as procedural, Hollywood hypocrisy in another." (Slant)
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Let's discuss the 1941 classic Sullivan's Travels written and directed by the American filmmaker Preston Sturges, recently voted the 243rd greatest movie of all time in Sight & Sound's international survey of film critics and scholars. The movie's title is a reference to Gulliver's Travels, the 1726 novel by satirist Jonathan Swift. O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the fictional book in the movie that Sullivan wants to adapt for the screen, was used as the title of the 2000 film by the Coen brothers.
Please watch the movie in advance (90 minutes) and bring your thoughts, reactions, and queries to share with us at the meeting. You can stream it for free here (you can adjust quality in the player settings) or rent it through Criterion or other streaming platforms (for best quality).
A preview.
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Check out other movie discussions in the group, currently happening about once or twice a month.
A spreadsheet of my ratings for movies we've watched in this group (titles in bold are my personal favourites, which may diverge from my ratings). Feel free to debate me 😄. You're invited to share your list too if you've watched many of these movies with us. (I can post it on our movie meetups if you send me a link. You can make your own list by copying my spreadsheet and filling in your own values.)