The primary motivating force that seems to be behind the narrative trajectory of Preston Sturges’s comedy Sullivan’s Travels is one that is inextricably linked to the era in which it was made. In fact, the making and the release of Sullivan’s Travels spans two eras. Production began as the Great Depression was starting to wind down of its own accord. By the time the film hit theaters, world forces has conspired to push the Depression to the finish line by lifting it and carrying it there. In between the making and the release of the film, Pearl Harbor was bombed. The world might as well have been two different places when Sturges was conceiving his film and when he got to see how audiences responded. Even more to the point is that what was appropriate for laughter and what had now become inappropriate material was already starting to subtly shift. That motivating force which propels both Sullivan’s travels in the movie and Sullivan’s Travels the movie itself is a very valid question: when is laughter appropriate as a way of dealing with very serious issues and when does it become an inappropriate response.
Keep in mind that Sullivan never poses or even seems to consider this question. He is far more concerned that not responding in a serious manner to the serious problems caused by the Great Depression may be harming his credibility as a filmmaker. He has made a fine living in Hollywood churning out mindless entertainment to keep those most affected by the economic collapse distracted enough to possibly even change a few minds now and then about permanent escape into the big sleep.
So firmly ingrained into the discourse of classic Hollywood films is Sullivan’s Travels that earlier in the century, Turner Classic Movies includes scenes form the film in its promos for its weekly edition of “The Essentials” with the now-familiar trope that the film became a classic in part due to its underlying argument that the gift of laughter is one of the rarest, more precious and undeniably necessary gifts that any filmmaker can possess. Such an interpretation certainly underscores Sullivan’s final philosophical summing before the credits begin to roll: “There's a lot to be said for making people laugh…It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.”
To get at the underlying message of the film requires little more than to agree with that statement. Extricating the overriding implicit and unstated subtext of Sullivan’s observation requires a bit more work. Sturges was far too intelligent and world-weary a screenwriter to accept the words he has Sullivan speak at face value. To get to that point where Sullivan can encapsulate the fundamental truth of his recent travels, he first had to undergo a sort of hero’s journey in which he temporarily broke free—or free enough, at any rate—from his ivory tower shelter from the real world inside his Hollywood mansion. That journey exposes Sullivan to a darker reality that no comedy film, however hilarious, can impact. If the film ultimately comes down for Sullivan on the side of comedy being great medicine, it also begs the audience to consider the dangerously socialist message (then and now) that cooperation may actually be an improvement over competition. Even more to the point, by the time Sullivan has come to fully appreciate the value of his sense of humor, he has also come to understand that the conventionally accepted truths about democratic ideals and free enterprise economics are exactly the things brought on the Great Depression in the first place and that any serious suggestion that they are the only possibly tools available for fixing such a mess is exactly the point at which laughter becomes an inappropriate response when clearly bitter anger is the proper reaction.
