Movies You Should See is a new weekly series of essays covering movies that aren’t current but everyone should see if they are serious about seeing great films. Some of these films you likely heard of, some may have been before your time but can easily be found on physical media or streaming and some are more obscure than they deserve to be. Either way, these are films I feel you very much should see if you are serious about being a viewer of film as both an artform and an important medium. That doesn’t mean there won’t be films on here that aim to be nothing more than entertainment, but these films in this series aim to be great entertainment, and not just a time killer on a screen. With the COVID situation, my ability to go to the theaters cut short, I will start this series.
Despite being credited or uncredited as a writer on 44 movies, Preston Sturges only directed 14 films. In 1941, the Academy Awards introduced a new category, best original screenplay, and Preston Surgeries was the first screenwriter to win this category. He won for his script to “The Great McGinty”, against the scripts for “The Miracles of Morgan’s Creek” and “Hail The Conquering Hero”. The crazy thing is he wrote those scripts too, and directed all 3 films the scripts were made into.
“Sullivans Travels” is a film which poses so many questions, about art, about politics, about poverty, and about America in general. The film is about a filmmaker named John Sullivan (Joel McCrea), who is sick of making comedies, despite them making him a rich and famous director in Hollywood. After his last feature “Ants In Your Pants”, he basically begs the studio to let him make a serious film adaptation of “O Brother, Where Art Thou”. The studio balks and wants him to continue making his profitable comedies. He refuses, and as he puts it, he wants to “know trouble first hand”. So, he dresses up as a hobo, and sets out on the road. While on the road, he meets a struggling young actress (Victoria Lake), who vouches for him when he is wrongly accused of stealing a car, and to pay her back, asks her to help him with his ruse.
This movie gets it’s point across with goofball comedy with a serious undertone and message. He meets poor people, he sees suffering, he gets wrongly arrested and put in a labor camp for criminals. What you also get is one of the greatest montages ever put in film. When you see it, you will know right away what I’m talking about. However, instead of seeing the importance of showing the pain and suffering of the world, John Sullivan starts to learn the importance of his own work, and sees the case for comedy as escapism, and has a new appreciation for his contribution to the world through his movies.
“Sullivans Travels” is one of the great movies about movies, and in a way, it both criticizes movies and shows the importance of escapism of movies. It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it is a great film which will make you think about how much has changed, and how much hasn’t, but makes you thank your lucky stars that film is still a source of escape.
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