Sullivan's Travels

You see the symbolism of it? Capital and labour destroy each other.

It teaches a lesson, 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.

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 goggling at you from every corner,

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

Then why did they hold this one over for a fifth week at the music hall?

- 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 pander to the public, you'd still be in the horse age.

- Look at Hopalong Cassidy! - You look at him!

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

- 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 realise 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 wanna make O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Then go ahead and make it. I can't afford to argue.

That's a fine way to start a man 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 Hey-Hey In The Hay Loft,

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 were about clean young people in love, with laughter, music and legs.

But you don't realise 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?

What do you mean?

Just what I'm saying. You want to make a picture about garbage cans.

What do you know about garbage cans? When'd 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 10,000 feet of hard luck.

And all I'm asking you is, "What do you know about hard luck?"

What do you mean?

- Don't you think I've? - No. 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.

Well, you don't have to be ashamed of it, Sully.

That's why your pictures are so light, so cheerful, so inspiring.

- They don't stink with messages. - That's why I paid you 500 a week at 24.

- 750 at 25. - 1,000 at 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. - So I don't know what trouble is?

- Yes. - You're absolutely right.

I haven't any idea what it is.

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

Certainly 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. - Jack Benny and Rochester.

- A big-name band. - What?

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

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

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

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

- Huh? - 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. And thanks for the idea. - Wait! Don't be so impulsive!

- When will you be back? - Maybe a week, a month, a year.

Don't worry about me. Thanks, Dracula, you gave me a great idea.

I gave you?

Now look what you've done.

- 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 got from your uncle.

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

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

Get me a copy of 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's 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?

Well, perhaps I could be 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 cheque. Maybe I signed the blotter.

You made out the panther woman's cheque yet?

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

She has a very peculiar sense of humour.

- Good morning, sir. - 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.

- Who's caricaturing? - He doesn't know about the expedition.

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

and then I'm gonna make a picture about it.

If you 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. - I doubt if they would appreciate it, sir.

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

Also, such excursions can be extremely dangerous, sir.

I worked for a gentleman once

who likewise with two friends accoutred themselves as you have, sir,

and went out for a lark.

They have not been heard from since.

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

- Uh-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.

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 sewn into the soles of each of your boots.

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

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 with you, Sully. - I know.

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

- There's a great deal to it. - It's stupendous.

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

Bigger! It's the story of the year, Sully.

It'll make every front page.

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

And agents in front and behind.

- I want lots of eight by tens. - Now, listen...

Revamping that lovely land yacht that De Mille used.

- It follows you at a discreet distance... - Hot coffee, sandwiches and a bar.

It's connected to the studio by short wave, and it also carries...

a hot shower and a secretary. - And a physician.

Look, I'm trying to find trouble,

but I won't find it with six acts of vaudeville on my tail,

at least not the kind I'm looking for.

- Be reasonable, Sully. - I'm reupholstering it.

- What do you say? - I tell you I've made up my mind.

- Definitely? - Definitely!

In that case there's nothing else to do but serve you with this little summons

to show cause why you should not be restrained from jeopardising

your unique and extraordinary services

- by wilfully, recklessly... - Will you please wait a minute!

We have all day, Sully.

But you must realise we also have minds, also made up.

Thus begins this remarkable expedition into the valley of the shadow of adversity.

The shadow of the what?

The valley of the shadow of adversity. It's what you call a paraphrase.

- Alone and unattended. - With eight stooges.

I'll write the story, if it's just the same to you.

Prey to passing prowlers, poverty and policemen.

- How poetic. - With only ten cents in his pocket.

I wish I had what he's got in the bank.

John Lloyd Sullivan, the caliph of comedy...