Sullivan's Travels

Sullivan's Travels

Sullivan's Travels was a film released in 1941 so just a few years after The Great Depression of the 1930s.  It was hugely successful. The two actors were Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake who were huge box office draws during this time. I've already talked about the film industry in a previous post so this is mainly going to talk about the movie and my opinion about it.

This film is very telling of America during a period where things were much more conservative and people just wanted to return to a period of normalcy. 

There are many things in this film that shows how conservative America was during this time.

First off, Joel's character and his wife are sleeping in separate beds.

Secondly, you never once see Veronica and Joel kiss at all. 

The most scandalous things during this movie were when one of the women has her legs showing when the bus is jumping around and when Veronica and Joel are sleeping together at a homeless shelter.

In the eyes of society today, that is nothing compared to what people see today in movies. There is lots of violence and plenty of sex in movies.

During the 1930s there were codes installed by the Motion Picture Association of America, this is where films get their ratings as well.  Also the Catholic Church had set aside a Legion of Decency where they got to deem which films were appropriate for audiences.

This know is a Hollywood during Code Period. There were things that could and couldn't be shown. Often times, films had to be edited in order to fit the standards of both codes.

 Sullivan's Travels overall was a great movie despite all the rules that had been placed upon it because of the time period in which it had been produced and created.

If I could, I would watch the movie again just to catch more of the historical aspects of the time. There are so many are telling of the times. I personally wished that Veronica and Joel had kissed at the end to signify that they were together and that didn't happen which was kind of disappointing to say the least.