Oldie Review: Sullivan's Travels

[Razorburn2021]

Ok, so with no entries so far, I'm assuming that reviewing something that's ass-old is ok? Anyway, I got this from my Netflix recently

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034240/

It's this great story of a film director who is tired of making commercial comedies and wants to make a great film about the struggle of the poor man titled "O Brother Where Art Thou?"(I don't know if the Cohen's derived the title of their movie from this, but one has to assume.) So, to prepare for this undertaking, he strikes out on the road dressed as a hobo with only a dime in his pocket. Adventures, some of them funny and some not, ensue. In the end, Sullivan leans things about what he does and what life for the poor is like. Being the Five Minute Movie Review, that's all I'll give you but to say that it's a damned fine film that has some of the sharpest dialogue, not only for a film of it's time, but ever. To supplement my accolades, allow me to submit this gem from the film...

Burrows: I don't like it at all, sir. Fancy dress, I take it? John L. Sullivan: What's the matter with it?
Burrows: I have never been sympathetic to the caricaturing of the poor and needy, sir.
John L. Sullivan: Who's caricaturing?
John L. Sullivan: 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.
Burrows: 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.
John L. Sullivan: But I'm doing it for the poor. Don't you understand?
Burrows: 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.

Burrows: 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.

If you're a fan of good cinema, this is for you. If you're a fan of old timey movies with old timey fast talk, this is the middle of the bulls-eye for you.

[kolop1]

Thanks for posting this review, that is exactly what this is for.