Preston Sturges shows a fair amount of nerve here, and cinematic audacity is, I’m convinced, one of the primary criteria that makes a film Criterion-worthy. By naming the film as he did, he draws comparisons to the famous satirical classic “Gulliver’s Travels,” a book probably more familiar in adaptation or paraphrase for children than the 18th century original (which I did read, many years ago – I didn’t get a lot of Swift’s jokes though…) By the 1940s, cinema had (I presume) established a foothold in the domain of artistic respectability, but in the most “respectable” circles, only when the subject matter was serious, grim, epic and even depressing. Sturges risks getting lost in a self-referential world of insider parody, and there’s certainly enough of that to please fans of the old Hollywood. But he doesn’t stay there, nor does he take the self-loathing route that often suffices for the big statement in contemporary “films about film.” He uses a wide range of cinematic techniques, including a short movie-within-the-movie to open the picture and a seven minute music-only sequence where the camera wanders through hobo camps showing the harsh conditions endured by Americans at the end of the Great Depression. He manages to make his case for the redemptive power of comedy flicks quite unapologetically at the end, and without grandiosity either. Indeed, Sturges makes it all look very easy – and he wrote, produced and directed the thing…

For more of my thoughts on this film, and some clips, visit my blog:

http://criterionreflections.blogspot.com/2009/05/sullivans-travels-1942-118.html