A confession, since this is my third Preston Sturges pick and I'll probably end up recommending every movie he ever made at some point, since his run in the 1940's as a director was relatively short, and he only has about five or six films in his filmography- but what a run it was! Just about every one of those films is a full on classic, with this one topping them all for most movie buffs (I prefer The Lady Eve, but just by a hair). Sullivan's Travels is a Hollywood satire, a screwball comedy, a road movie and a meaningful treatise on the power of comedy to affect people's lives- it's perfect in nearly every way. Joel McCrea stars as a big time director of comedies out to make an epic drama and be taken "seriously," but of course he's got to learn his lesson and team up with a beautiful blonde (1940's bombshell Veronica Lake, one of cinema's biggest sex symbols) along the way. Every line is clever, witty and fast- no one put together words and dialogue quite like Sturges, and it's a joy just to listen to it and hear the words roll off the actor's tongues in a way you never could now. See this movie as soon as you can- as TCM would say, it's an essential.
Original 1942 Trailer:
