Going from nothing to AFI's top 100 in 2007, Sullivan's Travels is an achievement in cinema worth the recognition. The film is about a comedy director named Sullivan who wants to make a dramatic film about poverty, but having no experience with it, goes out as a tramp with only 10 cents. Everyone warns him of the misguided nature of that experiment; eventually he runs into a down-on-her-luck girl (Veronica Lake) who accompanies him.
At first a light comedy with plenty of wit and enjoyable physical humour, Sullivan's Travels admires the commentary films can make on social systems. Sullivan praises a film symbolizing capitalism and labour destroying each other, and wants to make a film like it. It also explores, fairly extensively, how the rich can sympathize for the poor not knowing what the conditions are actually like. The butler condemns such rich people as morbid for glamourizing poverty. Sullivan, in fact, has great difficulty really getting into the feel of it, as he keeps ending up back in Hollywood, back at his mansion, back in the hands of his staff. He receives some sympathy he doesn't need. He asks tramps how they feel about the labour situation (how are they supposed to feel about it?). When Lake pushes him into the pool, one feels he deserves it.
That's until the last third of the film, which turns much darker. After Sullivan is robbed and knocked out by the only villainous poor person in the film, he, in a dazed state, hits a railroad worker with a rock and goes to prison. No one knows who he is. Now he's really facing harsh reality, beaten, in chains, unable to access the quality defence he needs. When he, fellow-prisoners and a black congregation watch a comedy film in a church, Sullivan sees first-hand what comedy can give these people. Once let out, he goes back to making comedies- everything's come full-circle, but now he has more purpose than ever.
This is a movie that adeptly balances comedy and drama, to examine comedy and drama. Two things particularly stand out- one is Lake, with her sultry voice and jaded character which are simply irresistible. The other is the scene in the church, where comedy unites and uplifts the downtrodden. This is movie magic.
At first a light comedy with plenty of wit and enjoyable physical humour, Sullivan's Travels admires the commentary films can make on social systems. Sullivan praises a film symbolizing capitalism and labour destroying each other, and wants to make a film like it. It also explores, fairly extensively, how the rich can sympathize for the poor not knowing what the conditions are actually like. The butler condemns such rich people as morbid for glamourizing poverty. Sullivan, in fact, has great difficulty really getting into the feel of it, as he keeps ending up back in Hollywood, back at his mansion, back in the hands of his staff. He receives some sympathy he doesn't need. He asks tramps how they feel about the labour situation (how are they supposed to feel about it?). When Lake pushes him into the pool, one feels he deserves it.
That's until the last third of the film, which turns much darker. After Sullivan is robbed and knocked out by the only villainous poor person in the film, he, in a dazed state, hits a railroad worker with a rock and goes to prison. No one knows who he is. Now he's really facing harsh reality, beaten, in chains, unable to access the quality defence he needs. When he, fellow-prisoners and a black congregation watch a comedy film in a church, Sullivan sees first-hand what comedy can give these people. Once let out, he goes back to making comedies- everything's come full-circle, but now he has more purpose than ever.
This is a movie that adeptly balances comedy and drama, to examine comedy and drama. Two things particularly stand out- one is Lake, with her sultry voice and jaded character which are simply irresistible. The other is the scene in the church, where comedy unites and uplifts the downtrodden. This is movie magic.