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Sullivan's Travels [DVD] [1941]

Joel McCrea , Veronica Lake , Preston Sturges    Parental Guidance   DVD
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
Price: £5.83 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

Sullivan's Travels [DVD] [1941] + My Man Godfrey [1936] [DVD] + The Awful Truth [DVD] (1937) [2003]
Price For All Three: £14.02

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Product details

  • Actors: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn
  • Directors: Preston Sturges
  • Writers: Preston Sturges
  • Producers: Preston Sturges, Buddy G. DeSylva, Paul Jones
  • Format: PAL
  • Language: English
  • Subtitles: English
  • Dubbed: None
  • Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired: English
  • Audio Description: None
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: PG
  • Studio: Universal Pictures
  • DVD Release Date: 18 April 2005
  • Run Time: 90 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00079FGXA
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 30,544 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

Reviews

From Amazon.co.uk

Writer-director Preston Sturges's third feature, 1941's Sullivan's Travels, remains the antic auteur's most ambitious screen effort. Having added the producer's stripe to his duties, Sturges combines breezy romantic comedy, arch Hollywood satire, and social essay into a single, screwball story line. The titular pilgrim is John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), an Ivy League grad who's enjoyed a meteoric rise as the director behind escapist movies like Ants in Your Pants of 1938, but is now determined to raise his sights toward more exalted, serious-minded cinematic art. His proposed breakthrough, portentously titled O Brother, Where Art Thou?, elicits a studio response closer to "Oh, brother," given the director's utter lack of first-hand experience on the wrong side of the tracks.

Instead of capitulating, Sullivan sets off disguised as a tramp, ready to meet life's crueler lessons face-to-face--albeit followed at a discreet distance by a motor home filled with studio handlers and reporters. His ludicrous odyssey may give the boy director no real insight, but it gives Sturges the chance to inject some reliably fine gags and a romantic subplot featuring the luminous Veronica Lake. It's at this juncture that Sturges the writer's darker objective throws a jolting shift in tone. Suffice it to say that just when a comic, upbeat denouement seems imminent, Sullivan travels instead from the sunlit California of the comedy's early reels toward a darker, relentlessly downbeat world influenced more by the social realism of the movies the hero desperately wants to make. By the final reel, Sturges has flirted with real tragedy, turning his conclusion into a meditation on his own seemingly carefree, dizzily comic art. --Sam Sutherland

Product Description

Filmmaker John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is looking to make a serious social statement in his next film, and decides to take to the streets disguised as a tramp. Following his return to the studios he plans to hand out thousands of dollars to the needy, But Sullivan becomes a victim of crime when a tramp steals his clothes and his identity. With the world believing that the great filmmaker is dead, following a car accident involving the tramp, Sullivan has to prove who he really is.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Preston Sturges' "Sullivan's Travels" is a film about a great deal many things. Yet, despite its pointed commentary on the social and economic ills inherent in American society, its core message is an important one - people should never underestimate the important role laughter plays in their everyday lives.

Film director John Sullivan (Joel McCrea) tells his studio bosses that he has grown tired of making comedies and wants to direct a project with more substance. He comes up with a plan to pose as a vagrant in order to learn first-hand how the real world treats the less fortunate. After he comes back from his masquerade, Sullivan plans to use his experiences to make an important and socially-conscious new work. A young, struggling actress (Veronica Lake) joins him on his journey but Sullivan's plans go awry when a strange series of circumstances leads to his imprisonment.

"Sullivan's Travels" sometimes feels like it is biting off more than it can chew. Sturges uses Sullivan's 90-minute cinematic trek to comment upon the economic and artistic conflicts present in the Hollywood system, the plight of the downtrodden, and the troubling problems that exist in the American justice and prison systems. Trying to cover so much ground proves disorienting as the story oftentimes abruptly changes its focus. However, "Sullivan's Travels" nonetheless mostly succeeds in its multi-tasking endeavor and turns out to be both an entertaining and thought-provoking viewing experience. McCrea is perfectly cast in the lead role and Veronica Lake oozes with screen presence in every frame she occupies. Chalk up "Sullivan's Travels" as a journey that was well worth taking.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Simple, amusing , effective and fun 6 Oct 2010
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you want to watch a film that keeps you amused, with a straightforward storyline, an entertainment with pathos and the stunning Veronica Lake in it ... watch this. love it.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Mario
Format:DVD
This film is the most complete and accessible of all Sturges's films. Others have funnier moments although the mad chase near the start should have your stitches bursting; others are more frenetic, manic, bonkers etc. This is the only one'll make you weep a little so really it's anomalous if you want pure satire. There's a modernity of sensibility about Sturges which impresses compared to much of the stuff which doesn't date well from the period. Joel is a great sneezer, the best in cinema that I've seen and reminds me of the Tunes advert for the bloke who wanted a 'Return dicket to Dottingham' except Joel does it really well. In fact he's better than Eddie Bracken's hayfevered Truesmith in Hail the Conquering Hero, although he's pretty good too. The wit is just immense and Veronica Lake is like your Daddy told you she was - enchanting. There are always black characters in Sturges too. That sounds pretty patronizing but the scenes in the church where the 'decent' black community play host to the filthy prison inmates who are (this bit is clearly 'in the south') 'less fortunate than ourselves' is very knowing and underlines the liberal yet non-wishy-washy sentiments he seems to espouse.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Preston Sturges 18 Nov 2008
By Lulu DF
Format:DVD
I thought it went without saying that this is one of the most positive and entertaining films from a period with a cliched embarrassment of riches but I see it gets only a three star review.
Quiet undeserved.
See it for yourself and you won't fail to want to be more generous as the spirit of the film persuades your stingy spirit to loose the hold of meanness: that last reviewer was of a mind to give it only one star as he began writing - see what the spirit can do?
Rob
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4.0 out of 5 stars Funny... and a bit dated 7 Nov 2010
Format:DVD
Wonderful performance by one of the most underrated of Hollywood stars, Joel McCrea. Pretty Veronica, good photography, capable direction... just a little bit dated, especially the inevitable putting down of persons of the black race which was very common at that time but is increasingly hard to watch now.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful 25 Mar 2009
Format:DVD
I have never seen this movie before but some of the sentiment is as relevant today as when it was made. Thoroughly enjoyable.
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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars A Screwball Comedy About Propaganda? 14 Jan 2011
By Sam
Format:DVD
What role do comedy films have during a war? Shouldn't all efforts be made into making propaganda to help the war effort at home and at the front? This is the interesting proposition that underpins the 1941 screwball comedy by Preston Sturges, a director known for his light touch. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is a film director who is fed up with creating comedies during the Great Depression and instead wants to reflect the misery that the average person is suffering. To do this he tries to go undercover as a homeless man and mingle. He meets the aspiring actress (Veronica Lake) in his travels and the duo set out to uncover what the real world, away from the Hollywood Hills, is actually like.

As a knockabout comedy `Sullivan's Travels' is reasonable, but not up with the best in the genre. McCrea as Sullivan is a little bland, and although Lake is nice to look at, she lacks the personality to really sell humour. The film resonated with me towards the end when I realised that Sturges was trying to justify the use of comedy during bleak times in history. The character of Sullivan learns that people want to laugh and enjoy themselves, rather than be reminded of the dangers in their own life. With this film Sturges created a good argument for lighter films being made during the Second World War. They may not be propaganda, but they do their bit to keep morale up. A flawed comedy, but still an interesting film from the era.
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