Sullivan's Travels
Director: Preston Sturges, USA, 1941, 91 minutes, 16mm John L. Sullivan is a past-master of the escape comedy, but he wants to turn to drama with social significance. Determined to learn the true meaning of the word 'poverty', he leaves Beverly Hills for the real world, joined in his misadventures by hobo / hippie / Hollywood-hopeful Veronica Lake. Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels is just about the funniest, wittiest, and wisest movie ever made by Hollywood about Hollywood. Sturges turns the film into a personal apologia for favouring the Marx Brothers over Marxism. The deep poignancy of the way-stops at depression flop houses, on skid row, and among the southern chain gangs achingly illustrates the tug of social cinema on Sturges' heart. Nonetheless, the journey ends up with despairing convicts entertained by a Mickey Mouse cartoon as a panacea for the world's ills. Sturges' most personal film is thus saturated with doses of both genuine pathos and authentic slapstick while its verbal mastery frequently rings with Shavian eloquence. - Tom Allen, Village Voice. Internet Movie Database listing
|
||||||||||||