Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.
Just as there are plenty of musicals about the ups and downs of putting on a musical, so too are there plenty of movies about the movie business. It makes a certain sense that at some point filmmakers would be interested in creating something that is so connected with them. There are plenty of films that use the idea of making a film as a backdrop or tangential to the plot and those that are more or less about the movie industry itself. Sullivan’s Travels is sort of in between the two. It’s unquestionably about making a film, but it’s also about a bit more.
John Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is a director of silly musicals and screwball comedies, and he’s a pretty successful one. But he’s bored. He’s bored with what he’s doing and he’s bored with the films he’s been making. He wants to do something real, something with substance. His dream script is “O, Brother, Where Art Thou?” a film that talks about suffering and the plight of the poor, but no one wants him to make it, mostly because he’s never really known what it is to suffer.
