Preston Sturges

Sullivan’s Travels

Sullivan’s Travels

Tired of churning out lightweight comedies, Hollywood director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) decides to make O Brother, Where Art Thou?—a serious, socially responsible film about human suffering. After his producers point out that he knows nothing of hardship, Sullivan hits the road disguised as a hobo. En route to enlightenment, he encounters a lovely but no-nonsense young woman (Veronica Lake)—and more trouble than he ever dreamed of. This comic masterpiece by Preston Sturges is among the finest Hollywood satires and a high-water mark in the career of one of the industry’s most revered funnymen.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1941
  • 90 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.37:1
  • English
  • Spine #118

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2001 by filmmakers Noah Baumbach, Kenneth Bowser, Christopher Guest, and Michael McKean
  • Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer (1990), a seventy-five-minute documentary made by Bowser for PBS’s American Masters series
  • New video essay by film critic David Cairns, featuring filmmaker Bill Forsyth
  • Interview with Sandy Sturges, the director’s widow, from 2001
  • Interview with Sturges by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper from 1951
  • Archival audio recordings of Sturges
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Stuart Klawans

New cover by Maurice Vellekoop

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2001 by filmmakers Noah Baumbach, Kenneth Bowser, Christopher Guest, and Michael McKean
  • Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer (1990), a seventy-five-minute documentary made by Bowser for PBS’s American Masters series
  • New video essay by film critic David Cairns, featuring filmmaker Bill Forsyth
  • Interview with Sandy Sturges, the director’s widow, from 2001
  • Interview with Sturges by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper from 1951
  • Archival audio recordings of Sturges
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Stuart Klawans

New cover by Maurice Vellekoop

Sullivan’s Travels
Cast
Joel McCrea
John L. Sullivan
Veronica Lake
The Girl
Robert Warwick
Mr. LeBrand
William Demarest
Mr. Jones
Franklin Pangborn
Mr. Casalsis
Porter Hall
Mr. Hadrian
Byron Foulger
Mr. Valdelle
Margaret Hayes
Secretary
Robert Greig
Sullivan's butler
Eric Blore
Sullivan's valet
Torben Meyer
The doctor
Victor Potel
Cameraman
Richard Webb
Radioman
Charles Moore
Chef
Almira Sessions
Ursula
Esther Howard
Miz Zeffie
Frank Moran
Tough chauffeur
Georges Renavent
Old tramp
Harry Rosenthal
The <i>trombenik</i>
Alan Bridge
The Mister
Jimmy Conlin
Trusty
Jan Buckinham
Mrs. Sullivan
Robert Winkler
Bud
Chick Collins
Capital
Jimmie Dundee
Labor
Credits
Director
Preston Sturges
Written by
Preston Sturges
Associate producer
Paul Jones
Edited by
Stuart Gilmore
Costumes
Edith Head
Makeup artist
Wally Westmore
Director of photography
John Seitz
Art direction
Hans Dreier
Art direction
Earl Hedrick
Music score
Leo Shuken
Music score
Charles Bradshaw

Current

Three Reasons: Sullivan’s Travels
Three Reasons: Sullivan’s Travels
Those are our three reasons. What are yours?
Sullivan’s Travels: Self-Portrait in a Fun-House Mirror
Sullivan’s Travels: Self-Portrait in a Fun-House Mirror

Preston Sturges revealed a lot about himself and the movie business in this hilarious and socially committed comedy.

By Stuart Klawans

Owen Kline’s Top 10
Owen Kline’s Top 10

The director of Funny Pages gathers an eccentric list of favorite films, including classics by W. C. Fields, Robert Downey Sr., and Robert Montgomery.

Connor Jessup’s Top 10
Connor Jessup’s Top 10

Canadian actor and filmmaker Connor Jessup’s third short film, Lira’s Forest, is an official selection at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.

Alan Arkin’s Top 10
Alan Arkin’s Top 10

Alan Arkin is an actor, director, writer, and musician. He has been watching movies from around the globe since he was seven years old. Here are ten of his favorites.

The Funniest Films Ever Written
The Funniest Films Ever Written

The Writers Guild of America has just assembled a list of the “101 Funniest Screenplays” of all time, which pays tribute to comedy classics ranging from Buster Keaton's The General to James L. Brooks’s Broadcast News.

Explore

Hans Dreier

Art Director

Hans Dreier

One of the most prolific film artists in Hollywood history, the German-born art director Hans Dreier worked on more than five hundred films from 1919 to 1951, amassing twenty-three Academy Award nominations and three Oscars. A student of engineering and architecture, Dreier began his career as an architect for the German government before being hired to design sets for UFA, the home of the German film industry, during the silent era. Like many of his moviemaking countrymen, Dreier eventually moved to Los Angeles, bringing with him all the expressionist tools of his trade—dramatically exaggerated spaces and chiaroscuro—and working closely with cinematographers like Victor Milner and such directors as Josef von Sternberg and Ernst Lubitsch to create vivid visual experiences. Dreier’s astonishingly vast and varied body of work extends from the intense, romantic shadows of early von Sternberg to the psychological grit of Anthony Mann’s American West, with many lighthearted pit stops in between, from Lubitsch's Ruritanian comic-musical landscapes to Preston Sturges’ just-off-center, whacked-out Americana.