Director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is one of Hollywood’s hottest talents, with an uncanny gift for getting audiences rolling in the aisles. But he’s dissatisfied: he wants to abandon comedy for Serious Statements, and buys the rights to celebrated social-realist novel ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’
To make his masterpiece as realistic as possible, Sullivan naturally has to understand how the book’s downtrodden characters must have felt, so he takes to the road as a hobo, is taken under the wing of a failed actress (Veronica Lake), and learns several valuable home truths about the importance of not patronising his audience.
Writer-director Preston Sturges had an inspired run in the 1940s, turning out some of the funniest American comedies ever made (The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek). Sullivan’s Travels is one of his best: not just hilarious but also truly wise.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- New high definition digital transfer of the film by Universal Pictures
- Uncompressed Mono 2.0 PCM Audio
- Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Audio commentary by filmmaker and Python Terry Jones
- Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer – Kenneth Bowser’s acclaimed feature-length documentary portrait from the American Masters series
- Kevin Jackson on Sullivan’s Travels: an appreciation by the writer and broadcaster
- The Preston Sturges Stock Company: a celebration of Sturges’ regular character actors and bit-part players
- Safeguarding Military Information: a Sturges-scripted propaganda short released in the same month as Sullivan’s Travels
- Theatrical Trailer
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jay Shaw
- Booklet featuring new writing on the film by screwball comedy expert Peter Swaab, plus archive pieces by Geoff Brown and Preston Sturges, illustrated with original stills and poster designs