This movie was probably my favorite that we have watched all semester. This could also be due to the fact that I love comedies and enjoy laughing. There were lots of things that I saw going on in the movie. Sullivan's Travels had many different parts to it, it had a movie within a movie at the beginning of the film, and then the movie flipped from serious to comedy.
One of the first things that I noticed in the film was the short film at the beginning of the movie. At first I thought it was the real movie, but as quick as it started it was over. But during that short period of time, there was a fight between the two men on the train. One of the men pulls a gun and is shown shooting the man and then the man who was shot has blood coming out of his mouth. Both of these things were against the production code. I don't have the date of this film, but I'm assuming that it was made towards the end of the period where films had to be subjected to the code.
After moving on from the short film, I started noticing weird or odd things in the films. The first of which was when Sully was meeting with his friends/bosses. While they are talking Sully puts on or removes his jacket and you can see that he has his tie tucked into his pants. I was trying to figure out whether it was in style at the time or if it was done to get laughs. I got the feeling that it was more for laughs than anything, because none of the other men wore their ties like that. Later in the movie I noticed how Sully walked with the girl. They never walked side by side or hand in hand, Sully always had his hand firmly grasping the girls arm. It never looked like they were companions, it looked more like she was in trouble and he was walking her to meet someone to be punished. It just looked awkward to me.
Other than these weird moments, I noticed the switching between serious and humor. It was like the movie or producers could not make up its mind on what it was supposed to be. The movie became serious when there were scenes about Sully being a tramp or when he was in jail. The film would switch to comedy whenever he was on the move during his trip to get into trouble, like when he was staying with the creepy lady or during the pool scene.
Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. I was laughing quite often and I hope that we have more comedies in the future.
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Kyle, I'm glad to hear you say this; as I mentioned over on Jeremy's blog, I wasn't too sure what the class's reaction to this movie was. You're right--Sturges tries to confuse us with the movie within the movie before getting on with the comedy, but then, a lot of the movie takes us by surprise. Yes, Sturges puts in a lot of comic business (like the tie in the pants) that most people only catch on a second or third viewing.
ReplyDeleteGreat description of the amorous widow as the "creepy lady"!