Sullivan’s Travels ***** (1941, Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Porter Hall, Eric Blore) – Classic Movie Review 2593

As World War Two rages, writer-director Preston Sturges calls Hollywood to task for its frivolity in his brilliant 1941 serio-comic road movie. Sturges’s movie is a classic satire, still funny, relevant and worthwhile.

Joel McCrea stars as the escapist comedy film director-movie mogul Sullivan who abandons his privileged lifestyle to make a deeply worthy drama he plans to call O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Lacking the appropriate experience of the life of the common man, he sets out with just 10 cents to travel America and research life in the raw, ending up on a chain gang. In the end, though, the message is that happiness resides in simplicity and a Walt Disney cartoon – Playful Pluto.

There is distinguished acting work from the underrated McCrea and Veronica Lake as the starlet who travels with him, plus William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Porter Hall, Byron Foulger and Eric Blore, leading Sturges’s wonderful stock company.

Its also features Robert Warwick, Robert Greig, Jimmy Conlin, Al Bridge, Torben Meyer, Margaret Hayes, Frank Moran, Edgar Dearing, Victor Potel, Richard Webb, Charles Moore, Almira Sessions, Esther Howard, George Renavent, Harry Rosenthal, J Farrell MacDonald, Arthur Hoyt, Roscoe Ates, Robert Dudley, Monte Blue, Harry Tyler, Dewey Robinson, Harry Seymour, Emory Parnell, Julius Tannen, Chester Conklin and Gus Reed.

Joel and Ethan Coen finally made a movie called O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000, setting their movie on a chain gang.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2593

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Movie Queen (Veronica) by Graeme Jukes 2015.