From Fan History Wiki

[edit] Introduction

"One of the best movies you've probably never heard of" is how contemporary critics discuss Preston Sturges's fourth directorial effort.

It's difficult to categorise Sullivan's Travels (1941) in order to place it in its historical perspective. Is it screwball comedy, social commentary, romantic comedy, or a wry observation on the Hollywood studio system from an insider? One thing's for certain, though, it's Preston Sturges at his best, as he takes every genre -- from slapstick comedy to message film -- and turns it on its head to re-align it in a tour de force that will leave viewers cheering by the closing credits.

Featuring several members of Sturges' "unofficial" stock company, including such notable character actors as William Demarest, Eric Blore, Franklin Pangborn and Jimmy Conlin.

Written, directed and produced by Preston Sturges for Paramount Pictures.

In 1990, National Film Preservation Board, USA awarded Sullivan's Travels to the National Film Registry.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Main Cast

Joel McCrea . . . John L. Lloyd "Sully" Sullivan
Veronica Lake . . . The Girl

[edit] Supporting Cast

Robert Warwick . . . Mr. Lebrand
Porter Hall . . . Mr. Hadrian
William Demarest . . . Mr. Jones (Sullivan's press agent)
Eric Blore . . . Sullivan's valet
Robert Greig . . . Burroughs (Sullivan's butler)
Franklin Pangborn . . . Mr. Casalsis
Jimmy Conlin . . . Trusty
Jess Lee Brooks . . . Preacher at church showing film (uncredited)

[edit] Cameos

Preston Sturges . . . Film director (uncredited)
Ray Milland . . . Actor "The Girl" runs into on the movie set (uncredited)

[edit] The Movie

John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrae) is a highly successful director of movie comedies. Young, handsome, rich and extremely dissatisfied with his role in the Hollywood dream factory, he yearns to make a film of depth and meaning. To that end, the story he wishes to tell is based on the novel O Brother, Where Art Thou?, an epic tome chronicling the travails of the friendless, homeless and destitute in the United States.

But one man's vision is another man's box office poison. Neither the head of the studio, Mr. Lebrand (Robert Warwick), nor the studio's lawyer, Mr. Hadrian (Porter Hall), believe in their director's project, citing that the poor already know what poverty is, and that as Sullivan was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he has no conception of it either.

Agreeing with their arguments, Sullivan decides to set out on the open road to learn about poverty first-hand. Sensing the publicity and revenue potential of such a quest, Lebrand and Hadrian acquiesce, provided their director allows the studio to document his journey.

Dressed as a hobo -- with clothes provided by the studio's wardrobe department -- Sullivan begins hitting the road. But it's difficult to understand hunger or poverty, when wheeling behind fifty-feet away is a studio-owned "land yacht" (motor home) ready to whisk him away at the first sign of trouble. So, thumb out to hitchhike, Sullivan bolts away with a young teen in his souped-up jalopy. Now, truly on his own, he begins to understand some of the hardships being faced on a daily basis by the poor, from not being paid for a day's labour to not having a place to flop for the night.

Entering a diner the next morning, he's faced with having to pay for his coffee and doughnut up-front before being served. There he meets an aspiring actress (Veronica Lake), who is really down on her luck. Believing him to be worse off than she, the girl offers to buy him breakfast with the last of her own money. Sullivan doesn't wish to accept, but she insists.

Wanting to do her a good turn, as well, Sullivan offers to help her return to Chicago by loaning her his car. Accepting his sincerity, but doubting that the car is really his, she accepts his ride. Only for the two of them to wind up in jail. Once bailed out, Sullivan brings her back to his house as his guest.

Although his first journey was a failure, Sullivan is determined to try his experiment again. He wants to make it at least half-way cross country before being dragged back to Hollywood. This time, however, the girl accompanies him, if only because she feels responsible for him and to keep him out of trouble. But before they leave, his butler (Robert Greig) takes the precaution of placing identification into his shoes in case of another situation like the last one.

The girl and the director ride the rails, going from one Hooverville or flop house to another, listening to hellfire-and-damnation preachers over a bowl of gruel in a soup kitchen, winding up with lice infestation and having to take public showers, having shoes stolen after bedding down for the night on the floor in a mission house. Finally arriving in Kansas City, the pair can take the hardship no longer, and retire to the hotel suites that the studio has rented for them and the staff covering their story.

Believing himself ready to begin filming O Brother, Where Are Thou?, Sullivan wants to do one last thing before returning to Hollywood -- thank, in some small way, the people who touched his life during his cross-country trek. Dressing again in his hobo costume, he returns to the underbelly of the city, this time with money in his hands, and as he passes by the indigents, he gifts them with five-dollar bills.

While most are grateful and dismayed by this act of kindness and generosity, one tramp isn't. Hitting the director over the head, he drags the unconscious body into a freight car, and steals the remainder of the money. But his greed will be his undoing as he drops the bills on the train tracks, and when he attempts to return for them, he is killed by a speeding locomotive.

As for Sullivan, when he awakens miles from Kansas City, he is accosted by a railroad employee, who believes him to be a hobo. Concussed and confused, with no money and no memory, justice is swift, and he is sentenced to work on a chain gang for six years. And in a bizarre twist of fate, the hobo who was killed was the same one who had earlier stolen Sullivan's shoes, and because of the identification still in them, is mistakenly believed to be the late Hollywood director.

Now, truly alone, bereft of help or friends, and with everything taken from him, Sullivan learns the real meaning of hardship -- from the back-breaking labour of the road gangs to being placed in a sweat box for failing to follow orders quickly enough.

In one of the most touching and beautiful scenes of the film, the chain gang is allowed to attend a nearby church to watch a movie. The preacher (Jess Lee Brooks) and his congregation do all in their power to treat their visitors as guests, and treat them with respect and dignity. It is while watching the cartoon that Sullivan has his own epiphany.

Learning from a newspaper that he's believed dead, Sullivan finally figures a way out of his own dilemma: claiming that he "murdered" director John L. Sullivan.

Once back in Hollywood, the studio is all set to bankroll what they believe will be an epic success: O Brother, Where Art Thou?. But now, it's Sullivan who doesn't want to do the picture, realizing that when one has nothing, laughter and humour are sometimes the only possessions of value.

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.

[edit] Trivia

Walter White, Secretary of the NAACP, wrote to Sturges to congratulate and thank him for the church sequence:

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. [1]

Actress Veronica Lake was six months pregnant at the start of shooting the film.
The cartoon used in the film was Walt Disney's Playful Pluto (1934).
The author of the novel, O Brother, Where Art Thou? is noted on the book's cover in the film as "Sinclair Beckstein". This was an amalgamation of the names of authors Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis and John Steinbeck.
The film that John L. Sullivan wanted to make would become the title for the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? by brothers Joel and Ethan Coen in 2000.

[edit] Timeline

December 1941: Opened in the United States
January 28, 1942: Opened at the Paramount Theater in New York City, New York
August 21, 2001: First release on DVD in the United States
November 21, 2006: Re-released on DVD in the United States as part of the multi-DVD collection, Preston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection

[edit] Fandom & Kerfluffles

Because of both the age of this film (65+ years as of this writing) and the [probable] non-existence of a fandom devoted to it (as opposed to fandoms devoted specifically to actors Joel McCrae and Veronica Lake, and producer/director Preston Sturges, the likelihood of any fannish kerfluffles is minimal.

It should be noted that when the term fandom is used in this case, it does not mean that the film is a forgotten relic on the dustbin of history. As a film genre, the films of Preston Sturges still maintain a large fan base of people who view the films, purchase them on DVD, purchase books related to them, study them academically, as well as enjoy and understand pop culture references to them. However, the majority of fans are passive consumers of these films, rather than active participants within a larger "fannish" culture. At this time, there appears to be no core group of fans devoting time to writing fan fiction, creating fan art, building websites or performing other fannish activities related to Sullivan's Travels.