Dedicated to the “mountebanks” and “clowns” who produced lighthearted escapist fare during World War II, SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS was director Preston Sturges’s attempt to make the fun of that genre the message of his own entry. Elitist film director John Sullivan seeks authenticity in his own high-minded cinema, insisting on ‘earning’ the right to make ‘true’ stories of the downtrodden by living in the gutters, shelters, and train cars of the western United States. Instead, he always finds himself rejected by the world of the impoverished. It’s a bit tourism and a bit colonizing and it all ends with a hopeful smile.

PROTOTYPES FOR THE ROM-COM (Dec 2022 at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/prototypes-for-the-rom-com/

As of this recording, SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS is available to stream on The Criterion Channel. If you don’t have that or don’t want to use it, click here: https://archive.org/details/sullivans-travels

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Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: Title credits theme by Charles Bradshaw and Leo Shuken from the SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 205: SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1941)

3:27 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary (under exclusive license from AG Enterprises)

5:49 - You can’t make a movie that is about the movie you’re making

17:03 - Leading into the third act

24:23 - Gravity

36:27 - Aggressive awareness & the chain gang scenes

41:59 - The church scenes

48:50 - Poverty’s lack of a voice

57:16 - Veronica Lake is an afterthought

1:00:41 - The Junk Drawer

1:09:44 - Cody’s Noteys: Trylove’s Travels (Ride the Bus but with AFI movies)