John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is a film director who is well-known and even beloved around Hollywood for making light-hearted fluffy comedies that delight audiences nationwide. But Sullivan is convinced that he can do better as a director, he wants to films that challenge the viewer and comment on the real world. When it comes to filmmaking, for Sullivan, there's gotta be something more. This is why he decides to not only pursue the dramatic project O Brother, Where Are Thou? but also get a better understanding for the everyday struggles the film depicts. How will he achieve that? Why he'll go out into middle America disguised as an average Joe!
While in this disguise, he meets up with an aspiring actor known only as The Girl (Veronica Lake) who accompanies him on the various escapades he encounters in his struggle to understand the life of the common man. One of the most interesting parts of this story is how it makes Sullivan constantly inadvertently drawn back to his lavish Hollywood lifestyle, no matter what adventure he gets into, he somehow always ends up back in his elaborate mansion. This is such a recurring point in the story that the character himself frequently comments on how he just can't seem to evade a town both he and The Girl (for differing reasons) are looking to escape from.
Sullivan's Travels is so successful at humorously showing how often Sullivan just seems to naturally return to cushy Hollywood living that it makes the grim plot turn concerning Sullivan suddenly being imprisoned far from his Hollywood home in the third act all the more powerful. Previously, any situation Sullivan got himself into eventually worked itself out and ended with him back in familiar surroundings but now the hopelessness of his scenario is reinforced by how he isn't immediately rescued from his predicament. Sullivan's Travels eases you into thinking you've got how all solutions in the story can be solved before cleverly pulling the rug out from under you in the home stretch of its plot.
Though the Hayes Code that placed restrictions on all American films in 1941 ensures that Sullivan's Travels can't get too grim in depicting Sullivan's life in incarceration, Sturges still doesn't shy away from fittingly disturbing depictions of the misery our protagonist endures in this portion of the story. Before that, Sturges, both as a writer and director, shows a similar level of commitment and quality in depicting the far more humorous antics Sullivan and partner-in-crime The Girl get into as they try to assimilate to normal American life. Interestingly, the humor in these scenes nicely derives itself not from mocking everyday individuals the two lead characters encounter but rather how ill-prepared Sullivan is for tasks as simple as having the money to buy a cup of coffee.
Much of the humor also comes from the rapport between Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake, the latter actor delivering a performance that lends some personality to a role that, as the lack of a proper name indicates, isn't given much in the way of an actual character in the actual script. Though much of the humor between Sullivan and The Girl comes from dialogue-based gags (like Sullivan suffering a case of hay fever that hinders his speech), some of the most impressive sequences in Sullivan's Travels are dramatic ones that eschew dialogue entirely, including a scene depicting Sullivan being tracked by a shady man whose eventual demise is made all the more haunting by the lack of dialogue. If you're looking for a film that has either a pair of charming lead performances or well-executed dramatic dialogue-free sequences, might I suggest getting a movie, like Sullivan's Travels, that can do both?
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