I was recently listening to the audiobook of Ed Zwick's Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions (a really good book despite the slight criticism I am about to make, and highly recommended) and he was talking about his thoughts on new movies and how they have abandoned having something to say in favor of being pure entertainment. I while I don't entirely disagree that it is becoming much more rare to see a film with some actual substance, I don't like to trivialize the importance of pure entertainment. To his credit, Zwick himself acknowleges this and mentions Sullivan's Travels and it's message about the need for pure entertainment. Well, that's all the encouragement I needed to rewatch one of my favorite movies.
Released in 1941, Sullivan's Travels tells the story of a movie director Joel McCrea) who is set on making a big, important movie about the state of man and his trials and tribulations. The catch is, he comes from wealth and privilege and doesn't know much about the trials and tribulations of the "common man" on the street. His answer? He goes undercover as a hobo, riding the rails and scrounging for his next meal. His studio is hesitant to let their meal ticket go off on his own, which of course leads to hijinks. A girl is met (Veronica Lake, who in my humble opinion is one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen) who soon falls for him and becomes his partner in his travels.
They quite literally tramp around, meet people, experience what homeless life is like, and scurry back to Sullivan's mansion when they have had their fill. Sullivan is now ready to make his important movie, but first he wasnts to give back to the people who helped him understand their world. So he dresses up once again, goes out on his own this time, and hands out money to the vagrants at a train yard. He is attacked and robbed, with the thief being struck by a train. Sullivan has amnesia from a hit to the head, and gets thrown in jail for attacking an officer. When his identification is found on his mutilated attacker, the world thinkis he is dead. He is sentenced to hard labor on a chain gang with no hope of returning to his life until his sentence is carried out.
It's here that he learns the important lesson, that people know how hard their life is and they don't need someone to tell them. But what they do need is the relief of laughter. They need some pure entertainment as a release from the day to day pressures of life, not a reminder of those very pressures. This lesson is brought to him by way of a Mickey Mouse cartoon he gets to see thanks to the generosity of a nearby church. The preacher and congregation are black, and one of the beautiful things about the movie is the dignified and espectful way the black community is portrayed, in a time when black characters were all too often used as exagerated comic stereotypes. And this highlights an element of this movie that dares to proclaim the importance of pure entertainment. It has messages. It has the message of the importance of pure entertainment (a message that I think makes this a must watch for Oscar voters every year before they cast those ballots for this years "very important and serious costume period drama). But it aslo has messages about sexual harrassment of women in the entertainment indsutry. It has messages about charity. It has messages about being too self important. It has messages about inequalities in the justice system.
In short, this movie seems packed to the brim with messages, but at the end of the movie you mostly are thinking about how much fun it was. And that to me is one option that gets left out of the question of entertainment versus messaging. The best movies are the ones you enjoy, and also take away something a little bit more weighty. And Sullivan's Travels is certainly quite enjoyable. There are some clever bits, some serious drama, and to quote the producer at the beginning, "a little bit of sex in it".
Now that I've raved about the movie, a couple of buts of trivia. The big important movie that Sullivan wants to make is called O Brother Where Art Thou. This title was later taken and used by the Coen Brothers for their epic starring George Clooney. Their movie also did a good job of combining message and entertainment. I mentioned earlier that I think Veronica Lake is very attractive, and this movie was where I was first exposed to her. It turns out she was in a very advanced state of pregnancy during the shooting, which they hid very well. We won't comment on the scene where she's smoking, it was a different time.
I can't recommend highly enough that you watch this movie. It is very much a product of it's time, but also is very universal in it's themes. If I have a criticism of the movie, it's that it could have used more scenes of Veronica Lake in it. But it's still funny, and it's points are still valid, and it holds up remarkably well. It's not a movie that would do well as a remake, but the original is still very much worth watching.
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