Sullivan's Travels

You see? You see the symbolism of it?

Capital and Labor destroy each other.

It teaches a moral lesson. It has social significance.

Who wants to see that kind of stuff? It gives me the creeps.

Tell him how long it played in the Music Hall.

It was held over a fifth week.

Who goes to the Music Hall? Communists!

Communists? This picture's an answer to Communists!

It shows we're awake...

and not dunking our heads in the sand like a bunch of ostriches!

I want this picture to be a commentary on modern conditions.

Stark realism. The problems that confront the average man.

- But with a little sex. - A little, but I don't want to stress it.

I want this picture to be a document.

I want to hold a mirror up to life.

I want this to be a picture of dignity...

a true canvas of the suffering of humanity.

But with a little sex.

- With a little sex in it. - How about a nice musical?

How can you talk about musicals at a time like this,

with the world committing suicide?

With corpses piling up in the street,

with grim death gargling at you from every corner,

- with people slaughtered like sheep! - Maybe they'd like to forget.

Then why did they hold this one over for a fifth week? For the ushers?

- It died in Pittsburgh. - Like a dog.

- What do they know in Pittsburgh? - They know what they like.

If they knew what they liked, they wouldn't live in Pittsburgh.

If you pandered to the public, you'd still be in the horse age.

You think we're not? Look at Hop-along Cassidy.

You look at him!

We'd still be making Keystone chases, bathing beauties, custard pie...

- And a fortune. - A fortune.

Of course I'm just a minor employee here, Mr. LeBrand...

He's starting that one again.

I wanted to make you something outstanding...

something you could be proud of,

something that would realize the potentialities of film...

as the sociological and artistic medium that it is.

With a little sex in it. Something like...

- Something like Capra. I know. - What's the matter with Capra?

Look, you want to make O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Yes.

- Now, wait a minute! - Then go ahead and make it!

For what you're getting, I can't afford to argue with you.

That's a fine way to start a man out on a million-dollar production.

You want it, you've got it!

I can take it on the chin. I've taken it before.

- Not from me you haven't. - Not from you, Sully, that's true.

Not with pictures like So Long Sarong,

Hey, Hey, In the Hayloft, Ants in Your Plants of 1939...

But they weren't about tramps, lockouts, sweatshops,

people eating garbage in alleys and living in piano boxes and ash cans.

- And phooey! - They're about nice, clean young people...

who fell in love... with laughter and music and legs.

Now take that scene in Hey, Hey, In the Hayloft...

But you don't realize conditions have changed.

There isn't any work. There isn't any food.

- These are troublous times. - What do you know about trouble?

- What do I know about trouble? - Yes, what do you know about trouble?

What do you mean, what do I know about trouble?

Just what I'm saying.

You want to make a picture about garbage cans...

When did you eat your last meal out of one?

- What's that got to do with it? - He's asking you.

You want an epic about misery...

you want to show hungry people sleeping in doorways.

With newspapers around them.

You want to grind 10,000 feet of hard luck,

- and all I'm asking you is, what do you know about hard luck? - Yes!

- What do you mean? Don't you think I've... - No.

- What? - You have not.

I sold newspapers till I was 20,

then I worked in a shoe store and put myself through law school at night.

- Where were you at 20? - I was in college.

When I was 13 I supported three sisters, two brothers and a widowed mother.

- Where were you at 13? - I was in boarding school.

- I'm sorry. - You don't have to be ashamed of it, Sully.

That's the reason your pictures have been so light, so cheerful, so inspiring.

They don't stink with messages.

That's why I paid you 500 a week when you were 24.

- 750 at 25. - 1,000 when you were 26.

- When I was 26, I was getting 18. - 2,000 at 27.

- I was getting 25 then. - 3,000 after Thanks for Yesterday.

4,000 after Ants in Your Plants.

I suppose you're trying to tell me I don't know what trouble is.

- Yes! - In a nice way, Sully.

You're absolutely right. I haven't any idea what it is.

People always like what they don't know anything about.

I had a lot of nerve wanting to make a picture about human suffering.

You're a gentleman to admit it, Sully, but then, you are anyway.

How about making Ants in Your Plants of 1941?

- You can have Bob Hope, Mary Martin... - Maybe Bing Crosby.

- The Abbott Dancers. - Maybe Jack Benny and Rochester.

- A big-name band. - What?

Oh, no. I want to make O Brother, Where Art Thou?

But I'll tell you what I'm gonna do first.

I'm going down to wardrobe to get some old clothes,

- some old shoes, - Huh?

and I'm gonna start out with ten cents in my pocket.

What?

I don't know where I'm going, but I'm not coming back...

- till I know what trouble is. - What?

Don't worry, you can take me off salary.

Who's talking about taking you off salary?

- So long. Thanks for the idea. - Wait! Don't be so impulsive.

- How soon will you be back? - I don't know.

Maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe a year.

Don't worry about me. And thanks, Dracula. You gave me a great idea.

I gave you...

- Now look what you've done. - Yeah... What I've done?

With your lies about selling newspapers!

I sold as many newspapers as you supported a family at 13.

- I opened a shooting gallery. - With money you borrowed from your uncle.

- We better insure him for a million. - He's worth more.

- The bonehead. - Yes, but what a genius.

Get me a copy of that O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I guess I'll have to read it now.

Make that two copies. Why should I suffer alone?

- How's this? - Isn't that overdoing it, a bit sir?

Why break their hearts?

All right. Let's try that one again.

I think this one's sufficiently seedy, sir.

There's no use overplaying it, is there, sir?

Yes?

- Your wife is on one, sir. - What does she want?

I suspect it has something to do with today's being the 15th.

Payday. All right, put her on.

You may connect Mrs. Sullivan.

Yes?

You don't happen to remember what day this is, do you, dear?

Yes, I happen to remember what day it is.

No, I haven't forgotten anything. Have you?

Perhaps I could be a little more polite, Mrs. Sullivan,

but somehow, when I talk to you I don't feel polite.

I regret it, but that's the way it is.

I don't know whether I signed it or not.

I always close my eyes when I sign your check.

Maybe I signed the blotter.

Have you made out the Panther Woman's check yet?

You better get it down to her before she comes up here with the sheriff.

She has a very peculiar sense of humor.

Good morning, sir.

Good morning, Burrows. How do you like it?

I don't like it at all, sir. Fancy dress, I take it?

- What's the matter with it? - I have never been sympathetic...

to the caricaturing of the poor and needy, sir.

Who's caricaturing?

Burrows doesn't know about the expedition, sir.

I'm going out on the road to find out what it's like to be poor and needy,

and then I'm going to make a picture about it.

If you'll permit me to say so, sir, the subject is not an interesting one.

The poor know all about poverty...

and only the morbid rich would find the topic glamorous.

But I'm doing it for the poor. Don't you understand?

I doubt if they would appreciate it, sir.

They rather resent the invasion of their privacy, I believe quite properly, sir.

Also, such excursions can be extremely dangerous, sir.

I worked for a gentleman once who likewise, with two friends,

accoutered themselves as you have, sir, and then went out for a lark.

They have not been heard from since.

- That was some time ago? - 1912, sir.

- Huh. - You see, sir, rich people...

and theorists... who are usually rich people...

think of poverty in the negative,

as the lack of riches...

as disease might be called the lack of health.

But it isn't, sir. Poverty is not the lack of anything,

but a positive plague, virulent in itself,

contagious as cholera, with filth, criminality,

vice and despair as only a few of its symptoms.

It is to be stayed away from, even for purposes of study.

It is to be shunned.

You seem to have made quite a study of it.

Quite unwillingly, sir. Will that be all, sir?

- Thanks. - Very good, sir.

He gets a little bit gruesome every once in a while.

Yeah. Always reading books, sir.

- Oh. - As a matter of fact, sir,

I don't like the idea of a gentleman of your inexperience...

leaving with only ten cents in his pockets,

so I took the extreme liberty, sir,

of having a studio identification card...

sewed into the sole of each of your boots.

You'd think I was a child. The whole purpose of this expedition...

All right, all right, all right.

Before you all get started, I just want to tell you one thing...

- My mind is made up. - Nobody's here to argue, Sully.

- I know. - You know that your slightest wish...

We talked it all over, and there's something to the idea.

- There's a great deal to it. - Stupendous.

Cassy has it all worked out. It's safe as a church, big as a cathedral.

Bigger! It's the story of the year.

It'll make the front page of every newspaper in the country.

- I'm sending five of my boys... - With me in charge.

An advance agent in front and a follow-up behind.

- A cook and a still man. - I want lots of 8x10's.

- Now, listen... - I'm revamping that lovely land yacht...

that Demille used in Northwest Mounted.

- It follows at a discreet dis... - Hot coffee, sandwiches, and a bar in back.