Silent Ozu: Three Crime Dramas, Eclipse Series 42

Ken the Knife gets tough in Walk Cheerfully

SILENT OZU: THREE CRIME DRAMAS (Ozu x3, 1930 and 1933)

Eclipse Series, DVD, Release Date April 21, 2015

Review by Christopher S. Long

For reasons I don't quite grasp, the gangsters in Yasujiro Ozu's “Walk Cheerfully” (1930) like to perform choreographed dance moves, a group twirl finished with a jaunty “Oh snap, how do you like that?” gesture. They don't care that they're in a silent film; they're going to perform a nifty number for everyone to enjoy. It's a hint that even though our main character is an imposing thug nicknamed Ken the Knife (Minoru Takada) this isn't going to be the most hard-boiled of crime flicks.

That's because Kenji (the Knife) barely qualifies as soft-boiled. He pulls off penny-ante thefts with his faithful henchman Senko (Hisao Yoshitani) but doesn't put up much of a fight when the new woman (Hiroko Kawasaki) he falls for demands that he go straight or else forget all about her.

If you are one of the many viewers familiar exclusively with Ozu's sound films, it is obligatory to warn you that you are about to be shocked, shocked I tell you, at what you will find in this new three film set from Criterion's Eclipse series: elaborate camera movements, shots from high angles and medium angles, and even chase scenes. “Walk Cheerfully” begins with a hectic example of the latter though it ends peacefully enough with Senko and Kenji walking away from an accusing crowd feeling triumphant and relaxed.

Ozu will dial up the tension, though, as the happy hoodlums are forced to question their complacent ways by the arrival of Kenji's new love, who is as much a problem for doting Senko as for Kenji's jealous moll Chieko (Satoko Date), coiffed in vintage Louise Brooks bob. Like all of the films in this set, “Walk Cheerfully” reflects Ozu's love of American cinema; American movie posters adorn the walls, English words feature prominently in the background design and everyone is dressed in stylish Chicago mobster suits and fedoras. Genre cinephilia was not an invention of the Nouvelle Vague.

The real strength of “Walk Cheerfully” is in the characterizations that prove to be more layered than is typical of a gangster film of this (or any) era with sidekick Senko being particular memorable in his eagerness to adapt to whatever lifestyle choices his boss makes. The story, however, proves to be a pretty formulaic redemption tale (with enough intertitles to make this silent seem a bit too talky) which made the film a mildly disappointing way (compared to my sky-high expectations for any Ozu) to kick off the set.

That Night's Wife

That changes with the second film, the efficient, moody and all around spectacular “That Night's Wife” (1930). The film kicks off in the blackness of a city night with police shooing away the homeless; they will burst into more frantic action when they catch report of a brazen robbery that leads to a manhunt that dominates the first half of this short 65-minute film. The target is Shuji (Tokihiko Okada) who, after fleeing his crime scene (punctuated by a dolly in to a bloody handprint on the door!), clings desperately to the shadows, but comes fully into relief in a spectacular scene staged in a phonebooth (oh, cinema has lost so much with the shift to mobile).

His face drenched in sweat, Shuji cowers in the booth while we see the feet of the officers shuffling through the streets a short way away; these close-ups function almost like sound-effects on the comic book page, adding sensory depth to the silent proceedings. He is calling to check on the health of his critically-ill baby girl who is being tended to by his faithful wife Mayumi (Emiko Yagumo). A doctor establishes a classic deadline for him: “You must return home tonight!” Shuji can practically hear his bed-ridden daughter crying for daddy (we get to see it in heartbreaking fashion) and heads home though he knows it will lead to his doom.

The first half of the film is dictated by the rhythms of the chase; the second half is all stasis, and manages to be even tenser. A detective ( Togo Yamamoto) shows up at the family apartment to take Shuji into custody, but the protective mama bear winds up holding two guns on the copper while insisting that her husband be allowed to stay with his sick child through the night. In typical Ozu fashion we soon learn that the detective is a man of great compassion rather than a cardboard cutout. The camera explores every nook of this tiny apartment; one series of shots pans right to left over several still-life compositions of bric-a-brac, then reverses direction to show both the passage of time and a surprising shift in power that has occurred in the interim. This entire film is so very much alive and so very real (I think Ozu and Satyajit Ray created the most authentic characters of all-time) and the ending surely qualifies as “transcendental” by Paul Schrader's definition.

Dragnet Girl

If Ozu doesn't top himself in the next film in this set, he at least comes close. “Dragnet Girl” (1933) is expansive where “That Night's Wife” was more carefully circumscribed. A few years (and many films) later, Ozu's camera work and editing are quite advanced, but the credit for this film's success belongs in no small part to a finely-nuanced script by Tadao Ikeda (from a story by James Maki). Though she is the title character and the first important character we see, young Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) quickly recedes into the background as yet another jealous, small-minded gangster's moll. She's destined to be cut out of the picture when her tough-guy boyfriend Joji (Joji Oka), an ex-boxer turned career crook, falls for the sweet, innocent sister of a new young hoodlum in his gang.

But it's all a clever trick. This will indeed be another story of redemption, but it will play out in a wildly divergent fashion from “Walk Cheerfully.” Tokiko initially seems content to be a stereotype as she confronts the new girl at gunpoint, but an abrupt transformation occurs. Tokiko will be the one to change and she, not little Miss Trueheart, will be the primary agent of Joji's presumptive rehabilitation. In a sincere and deeply moving scene, Tokiko makes herself completely vulnerable to Joji: “Love me more!” It's pitiful in the literal sense of the term and Joji both takes pity on her and on himself. What an amazing way of shifting both the emphasis and the sympathy in the story; this needs to be in a screenwriting textbook somewhere. Admittedly, you might groan when the hackneyed line “We'll do one last job” casts its doomed shadow over the proceedings, but darned if, after a brief period of delusion, the couple doesn't realize just what a rotten idea they've come up with. I guess they had seen as many movies as Ozu.

Auteurists can't help but study these films for the signs of the Ozu that was to come, but perhaps it's better to focus on the Ozu who was, not yet 30 and intoxicated with both American films and the craft of filmmaking. He was certainly refining the techniques that would make him one of cinema's greatest masters, but he was clearly also just having himself one hell of a good time. And just a few years into his career, he wasn't a half-bad little director either.

Video:

All three films are presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Eclipse is Criterion's no-frills sub-label so these SD transfers have had little, if any, restoration. “Walk Cheerfully” shows considerable deterioration in many scenes, with staining and other debris visible throughout. “That Night's Wife” is slightly-less damaged but still shows advanced degrading in image quality which is most problematic in night-time scenes that look even darker than they were meant to; surely we were meant to see more in scenes where we can just barely pick out the shadow of a tree. Still, the images are intact and show enough detail to provide some striking close-ups and to make out the sometimes elaborate background décor. “Dragnet Girl” is by far the best of the lot. It has its share of dirt and debris but little of the overall deterioration of the other two transfers. In general, these films look their age but they're strong enough to be fully appreciated.

Audio:

These three silent films are all accompanied by new piano scores by Neil Brand which sound quite robust and clean. I'm no music expert, but I enjoyed all three scores quite a bit.

Extras:

Eclipse rarely includes extras but we do get the usual (and always excellent) one-page liner notes by Michael Koresky who has been a marvelous guide through these Eclipse releases for some time now, so three cheers to you, sir!

Each disc is stored in its own slim keepcase with all three cases fitting into the cardboard sleeve with graphics for the Eclipse Series.

Set Value:

Next time your movie-loving friend tells you Ozu always filmed at “tatami level” and hardly ever moved the camera, you can just say “Oh, really?” and point him or her to these three films (or, really, most other Ozu silent films). “Walk Cheerfully” is good but not Ozu at his finest while “That Night's Wife” and “Dragnet Girl” are pretty marvelous. Just sit there and smile while thinking about a young, eager Ozu digging and living out the dream as an up-and-coming talent in an industry he would soon come to define. And a young pre-stardom Chishu Ryu appears as an extra “Policeman” in the last two films, though this partially face-blind reviewer must admit he didn't quite catch him the first time through.

The Many Trials of Dreyer's Joan of Arc

“Oh Jeanne, to reach us at last, what a strange path you had to take.”

Written/Compiled by Christopher S. Long

The construction of an elaborate set, perhaps then the most elaborate in French film history, and six months of grueling shooting in painstakingly-managed chronological order were only the beginning of the struggle for Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 silent masterpiece “The Passion of Joan of Arc.” Below is a timeline of the film's release and the many twists and turns in its perilous journey through nearly ninety years. Precisely none of this is compiled from original research by me and I have listed my primary sources below; they deserve all of the credit, especially the detailed studies by T.A. Kinsey and Tony Pipolo.

I therefore do not post this as scholarly or definitive work, but simply as a brief summary of the research I have done in preparing my current class on the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, which I am currently teaching at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. I welcome all of my students who are checking in as well as any other readers who have kindly taken the time to read my humble little blog.

JOAN THROUGH THE AGES:

April 21, 1928: The film premiers in Copenhagen. This initial release is believed to have been screened silently (as this was Dreyer's stated wish) and had no credits at all as Dreyer wanted viewers to feel as if they were peeping “through a keyhole” at reality.

April 26, 1928: A free matinee screening is opened to 1,800 unemployed workers who filled out response cards, reportedly providing wildly enthusiastic feedback.

June 26, 1928: A press screening in Paris which would normally be quickly followed by a public opening, but French censors held up the film's permit, largely due to concerns from Church officials in France as well as long-standing protests from nationalist forces who objected to the film the moment a foreign director was announced for a project about “our Joan.”

Oct 25, 1928: The film begins a month-long run in Paris to substantially less enthusiasm than it experienced at the initial Copenhagen release. It would play with a score and with unauthorized cuts. A different version would be released nine months later that was allegedly better received, but the film would be a commercial flop in any version.

Dec 6, 1928: The negative had been shipped to the UFA studio in Berlin for the film's German release, but is destroyed in a fire. Dreyer immediately begins assembling a second negative from alternate takes (fortunately he had many, many takes, shooting at approximately a 40:1 ratio). Supposedly this second version is a shot-for-shot match and only Dreyer and the film's editor Marguerite Beauge could notice the difference. In 1929, this second negative would be reported destroyed by fire in a French studio. Dreyer's spirit was broken and he did not work on another version of the film. Prints made from both negatives survived and would assure that the film would continue to be seen, but these would gradually deteriorate with each projection.

Mar-May 1929: The film plays in the United States in a slightly shorter version. Like most versions, this one was usually played with musical accompaniment and likely had credits attached.

1929: The film's UK opening is delayed for about a year as British censors object to the portrayal of the British military in the film.

1933: One of the strangest of the many different versions of “Joan” is released, one put together by B-movie producer Sherman S. Krellberg (responsible for such films as “Fighting Cowboy” and “City of Lost Men”). It would run barely an hour, had no intertitles, and featured narration by radio personality David Ross. It was advertised with the horrifying tagline: “Sherman S. Krellberg Presents A New Thrill In Talking Films.” According to author Tony Pipolo (1988), an advertisement featured Krellberg's name more prominently than Dreyer's. Rights to the film were already under dubious protection (if any) in certain countries just a few years after its initial release.

1950-52: A negative of the film turns up at Gaumont studios in France, possibly the one reported lost in the second fire. This was handed over to the Cinematheque francaise where film historian Joseph-Marie Lo Duca took charge of a controversial re-release with a classical music score (the addition of which required cropping a portion of the film along the left side of the frame), some intertitles replaced by subtitles and some remaining subtitles reprinted on backgrounds with stained-glass windows and other Church imagery. It debuted at the 1952 Venice Film Festival. Dreyer hated his version (“there are no words which can express how Lo Duca has made my film on Joan of Arc banal”), but it wound up being the one most often exhibited over the next 30 years in many countries.

Joan with subtitles

1960s: The Danish Film Museum works on a 'best guess” print put together from the many different and largely unauthorized prints in circulation at the time. The term “best guess” has fallen under great scrutiny by film scholars. These numerous prints include copies stored at MOMA, the National Film Archive in London, one from an Italian private collector and several others.

???: At some point, “Joan” lapsed into public domain in the United States (I could not find the exact dates this was the case). This meant the copyright had not been renewed/defended and anyone could release the film, possibly with many unauthorized alterations. This changed in 1994 with the Uruguayan Round Agreements Act, and the film rights were protected in the U.S. once again. This actually happened to quite a few films, even major titles such as Fritz Lang's “Metropolis,” Carold Reed's “The Third Man,” and Alfred Hitchcock's “The 39 Steps.”

1981: One final bizarre twist in one of the strangest release stories of all. A custodian at an Oslo mental asylum discovers a pile of film canisters in a cupboard. They are sent to the Norwegian Film Institute where they sit for three years until they can be processed by the staff. It turns out to be a negative of “The Passion of Joan of Arc” still wrapped and with the Danish censor's seal intact; it has no credits and has Danish intertitles supervised by Dreyer. It is likely this print was ordered by the hospital's director Dr. Harold Arnesen though it was obviously never played.

There was considerable debate over just how different this “Oslo print” was from prints already in circulation (roughly summing it up: there are a few more shots, some of which are of different lengths, but no major additions or omissions; however even small differences cannot be ignored; most importantly, the quality of this negative was quite good.) The Oslo print, extensively restored by the Cinematheque francaise (who replaced the Danish intertitles with French ones and added credits), has now become the most commonly played one. It was the basis for the Criterion Collection's 1999 release of “Joan” on DVD.

A Few More Fun “Joan” Facts:

Michel Simon is listed in the opening credits of the film as playing Jean Lemaitre; you will find a similar listing currently on IMDB. This is incorrect. Simon only appears in one very brief close-up and is glimpsed in the background of another shot. Simon would become a very famous French actor and it is possible that any “mistakes” in later credits added to the film were not corrected in hopes of attracting his fans to the movie.

While the version of “Joan” on the Criterion DVD played the film at 24 frames per second, the film has frequently been screened (at venues like The Anthology Film Archive in New York City) at 18 fps, adding a considerable amount to its run time (from 82 min to 110) and also providing challenges for any music played to accompany it (if music is used). Film historians and archivists plan to battle to the death over this exciting topic.

This Oslo print has 1517 total shots (including 174 intertitles), about double the amount of the typical Hollywood film of the era. Of these shots, fewer than 30 show the same character from shot to shot (i.e. a character walking from one part of the room to another), an unusual feature that contributes to the jarring, disorienting sense many viewers get from this film. Thanks to Casper Tybjerg and David Bordwell for doing the counting on that.

Jane Wiedlin as the definitive Joan of Arc

There have been many film versions of “Joan of Arc” over the years, of course. The most interesting comparison to Dreyer's film is Robert Bresson's “The Trial of Joan of Arc” (1962). Bresson's version is as sober as Dreyer's is occasionally ecstatic; check out a clip (sorry, no subtitles) here. If I could sum up two differences between the films: first, Dreyer's Joan looks up while Bresson's Joan looks down (I think this observation comes from another critic though I recently mistakenly remembered it as my own) and second, Dreyer presents the trial as an outrage while Bresson seems to view it as yet another example of people just being people, i.e. horrible to each other. The perfect Bresson quote, “What you see as pessimism, I see as clarity.”

References:

David Bordwell, The Films of Carl Theodor Dreyer (University of California Press, 1981).

T.A. Kinsey, “The Mysterious History and Restoration of Dreyer's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc',” The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 94-107.

Tony Pipolo, “The Spectre of Joan of Arc: Textual Variations in the Key Prints of Carl Dreyer's Film,” Film History, Vol. 2, No 4, pp. 301-324.

Tony Pipolo, “Response to T.A. Kinsey's article on Dreyer's 'Passion of Joan of Arc',” The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring 2002), pp. 184-188.

Casper Tybjerg, commentary track on Criterion's DVD release of “The Passion of Joan of Arc.”

Master Of The House

MASTER OF THE HOUSE (Dreyer, 1925)

Criterion Collection, Bu-ray, Release Date April 22, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

Viktor Frandsen (Johannes Meyer) is the kind of guy you hate on first sight. He wears a permanent sneer just begging to be smacked off his face and holds his posture so rigidly he's either expressing his total contempt for everyone else in the room or he's severely constipated.

Familiarity doesn't render Viktor any more likeable. In the first scene, he sleeps in late while his harried wife Ida (Astrid Holm) works herself into an early state of exhaustion preparing breakfast and tending to the children. Within a few minutes after finally deigning to wake up, he bellows (this is a silent film, but the intertitles read loud) to Ida for his slippers, upbraids her for not having his morning coffee already on the table, and demands that she brush off his jacket because that's just not the sort of thing that constipated guys do for themselves. Once he finally leaves for work we watch Ida bustle about all day long, just barely keeping this pre-appliance household together with equal parts ingenuity and perspiration. And what's her reward? Sneery McScrewyouall stomps back in the door after work and dismisses all of her efforts with a fine “Really! What do you do all day?”

Oh yes, you're going to hate Viktor Frandsen. Boo, hiss, and boo again, sir! But just when you think Viktor can't possibly have a single redeeming feature, writer-director Carl Theodor Dreyer steers “Master of the House” (1925) in a surprising direction.

The English titles (created by Criterion for this release) that open this version of the film proclaim housewives as the true heroes of modern life, but the movie is really a testament to the strength and solidarity of all women steadfastly resisting the patriarchy. Ida's suffering does not go unnoticed, and pretty soon the family's elderly nanny Mads (more on her in a moment) and Ida's mother conduct an intervention in which they inform Ida that she must kick her no good husband to the curb tout suite.

These wise women have learned a thing or two about men and the film has provided us no reason to doubt their judgment, but Ida offers an unexpectedly stirring defense of her brute of a husband. Viktor lost his business and has since become anxious and bitter; she was with him during the good years and it would be selfish to leave during the bad. These are the words of the classic true-hearted silent screen heroine whose unshakeable faith wins the day, but they are also convincing.

Still, something must be done about Viktor and at this point it's relevant to point that “Master of the House” is billed as a comedy. This tale of a tyrannical, abusive husband hasn't exactly been a barrel of laughs to this point, but things change once Mads (Mathilde Nielsen) takes charge of the household. Convincing Ida to leave home for a while, the feisty nanny (who also tended to Viktor as a child) begins a lengthy rehabilitation project with the goal of breaking Viktor down and building him back up again.

Viktor stands in the corner like a bad little boy

As marvelous as Astrid Holm's restrained, naturalistic performance is, it's Nielsen who steals the show. Her Mads doesn't take guff for a second., and she literally slaps Viktor around to assure that he complies with the new program. Men are the masters? Oh please, let's see how long Viktor lasts trying to do a housewife's work: fold that sheet, change that diaper, get your own damn slippers. Sleeping alone is no fun either. Dreyer doesn't settle for the melodramatic (or even Bressonian) convenience of an instant transformation. Repentance is only the first step for Viktor; he's got to put in the daily labor required to achieve genuine empathy.

Dreyer pays even more meticulous attention to the domestic space than he does to Viktor's redemption. Unlike most sets of the era, the apartment was not constructed as a stage but rather a space fully enclosed with four (moveable for the camera) walls. We get to know every inch of the apartment from the stove to the table to the bedposts and, through that, the people who inhabit it. I don't know of any cinematic living space that would be explored so completely until fifty years later when we spied on Jeanne Dielman at 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

The subject matter may seem more mundane than the great Danish director's better known films like “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928) or “Day of Wrath” (1943), but Dreyer takes his heroines and his “hero” (the intertitles even place that word in quotes) every bit as seriously. The acting is both varied (Meyer and Nielsen more grandiose, Holm so quiet and confident) and superb, and the setting tangible. Dreyer had a heck of a knack for emotionally potent endings, and he delivers in profoundly satisfying fashion here as well.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

From the Criterion booklet: “For this new restoration, undertaken by Palladium, a digital transfer was created in 2K resolution on a Spirit 2 DataCine from a duplicate negative and other source materials at Digital Film Lab in Copenhagen. The film was also restored at Digital Film Lab, where 3,200 hours were spent removing dust, blotches, and scratches using the DaVinci Revival and Phoenix restoraton systems. Fifty hours were spent dedicated to image stabilization, where a Flame workstation was used to remove jumps caused by splices. The film's original flicker, the result of barying image exposure from the hand-cranked film camera, has been preserved.”

I don't usually quote that much, but that should give you a sense of how much labor went into the restoration of this nearly ninety-year-old film. You will still see some small scratches and other instances of damage, and a few scenes are less sharp than others. But the overall transfer is quite beautiful with rich B&W contrast and a thick grainy look that pleases the eye. Image detail is strong enough that we can appreciate not just the actors' faces, but the set decoration in the apartment that hosts almost every scene. This is a 1080i(nterlaced) transfer rather than Criterion's usual 1080p, but it doesn't pose any problems.

Short version: This movie looks far better than I ever imagined I would see it.

This is a dual-format release which means a DVD and a Blu-ray have been included. I only looked briefly at the DVD transfer and it is noticeably weaker as far as image sharpness goes, but is otherwise solid and is, of course, sourced from the same restoration.

Audio:

The LPCM 2.0 track does a fine job presenting the score composed by Gillian B. Anderson in 2000 from the cue sheets published by the Palads Teatret in Copenhagen that debuted the movie on Oct 5, 1925. The Anderson score was performed on piano by Sara Davis Buechner in 2004, and has been remastered for this release. The lossless audio crisply captures this modest but effective score.

Title cards in this silent film are all in English. To the Criterion booklet once more: “When 'Master of the House' was originally released, Palladium distributed two versions: one with Danish intertitles and the other with English ones. For this edition, Criterion returned to the original Danish version to create a new set of English intertitles.”

Extras:

Criterion has only included two extras, but both are interesting.

First is a new interview with Danish film historian Casper Tybjerg (15 min.) He discusses the play (Svend Rindom's “Tyrannes fald”) on which the film was based and some of the elements Dreyer changed for the film, including some scenes that were shot but cut out.

Second is a visual essay (23 min.) written and narrated by scholar David Bordwell. Bordwell is just about the best in the business at analyzing how a film or a scene is composed, and he makes a very convincing case that this deceptively simple movie is more aesthetically sophisticated than it appears on first blush. He also adds some interesting information about the production. Dreyer insisted that the apartment set have functioning gas and water, no doubt a precursor to his construction of the massive set for “Passion of Joan of Arc.”

The 20-page insert booklet includes an essay by scholar Mark Le Fanu.

Film Value:

“The Master of the House” isn't exactly a forgotten film, but it hasn't received as much press as Dreyer's most ballyhooed masterpieces. As far as I know this is its first North American DVD or Blu-ray release, and I expect this will be a great opportunity for many viewers to evaluate this as yet another great accomplishment by a great filmmaker.

Sullivan's Travels

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (Sturges, 1941)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date April 14, 2015

Review by Christopher S. Long

John L Sullivan is a born fighter. The Hollywood Strong Boy has already won the heavyweight box office belt as the director of such lightweight comedies as “Ants in Your Plants of 1939” and “Hey, Hey in The Hayloft” and now he's battling risk-averse studio honchos for his dream project. “O Brother Where Art Thou” will be a serious picture with symbolism and real-world meaning, the kind of movie Depression-era audiences really want. A (mostly) friendly executive suggests “Ants In Your Plants of 1941” instead, but John L. Sullivan has picked his fight and intends to go the distance.

Sullivan is portrayed by the steady, inherently likeable Joel McCrea as an idealistic but naïve dreamer (both a “bonehead” and a “genius” according to his peers) who is stubborn and vain but is at least willing to accept a little constructive criticism. Reminded that his privileged life has left him short of the “real-world” knowledge he would need for his magnum opus, he plans to acquire said knowledge by posing as a drifter and hitting the road with just ten cents in his pocket. That's about a penny for each of the members of his entourage who trail him and help to provide one of the many parachutes he can deploy whenever the going gets rough.

“Sullivan's Travels” (1941) was writer-director Preston Sturges's most autobiographical feature. Raised in privilege circumstances himself, Sturges was eager to promote himself as more of an everyday Joe though his easy command of sophisticated dialogue and his familiarity with the upper-crust always made that a bit of a tough sell. Sullivan isn't precisely a stand-in for Sturges, but he's not far removed from the real deal.

If Sullivan's sporadic explorations teach him anything about poverty, it's that it is very cold. Fortunately he can always press the rich man's panic button and get warmed up whenever needed so any learning will be limited. If the narrative has something else to teach Sullivan, it's that the impoverished souls crowding America's trains and revival halls want and need nothing more than a good laugh. No “deep-dish” movies for an audience that hasn't even had lunch. A responsible “artiste” will work to fill that need instead of selfishly following his own ambitions.

If that was the entire premise of the film, it would be pretty galling, populism at its most condescending outside of a politician's campaign speech. It would also seem to be an entirely inessential argument. Has there ever been a time when Hollywood studios needed a slap on the hand to keep them from being so ambitious and artsy and refusing to peddle formulaic escapist fare?

But Sturges has a lot more on his mind and certainly doesn't intend to suggest that the director become a quiescent hack. “Sullivan's Travels” is indeed plenty artsy in its own right and so serious at times it becomes downright grim. The film shifts from screwball caper to a more serious register when Sullivan hops his first train; the scene takes on an almost documentary-like quality as the famous director playing at being a bum muscles his way through a crowd, make that a huddled mass, of itinerants gearing up for a desperate rush for a berth aboard a moving train. The worn faces, the tattered clothes, the frantic surge all speak to a deprivation so vast the silver screen can only catch an oblique glimpse of it.

Accompanying Sullivan on this train ride is a young woman dressed as a boy, but since the young woman is played by Veronica Lake she isn't fooling anybody (although Sturges and company fooled viewers by strategically hiding Lake's advancing pregnancy). The unnamed girl showed Sullivan a little kindness when he was hard up for a meal, the first of several times he encounters spontaneous acts of generosity on a journey that brings him in contact with considerable suffering and occasional peril, and now she's tagging along with him ostensibly to keep him out of trouble. Lake's peak was all-too-brief but here she is at her glorious peak and she is, to dust off a film theory term, a real pill. And yes, of course they'll wind up together; ain't you never seen a Hollywood picture before?

While the film's superficial paean to populism falls flat (at least for me), its tribute to the suffering and the resiliency of disenfranchised workers in a land short on jobs and overstuffed with exploiters rings true. Perhaps the most memorable shot in the movie is a pan across the faces of worshipers at a black church as a group of mostly-white prisoners (Sullivan among them – it's a long story I won't spoil for you) files in to the back so everyone can watch a Disney cartoon. The group's laugh is the sound of solidarity which, at the very least, has the advantage of being eminently affordable, and a little more plentiful when facilitated by the right movie.

The ending is a bit too pat and unconvincing (according to critic David Cairns on an extra on this disc, Sturges was unsatisfied with it) but “Sullivan's Travels” is a film so quintessentially of its time that it remains timeless. When the bell finally rings, Sturges has won by a knockout.

Video:

Criterion originally released “Sullivan's Travels” on SD in 2001 and I don't have it as a point of comparison. This Blu-ray re-release maintains the old Spine Number 118 but comes with spiffy new cover art.

The film is presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio. There are occasional signs of some minor dirt and debris from the print source but we're talking specks rather than chunks, nothing significant but not entirely pristine. I think that's perfectly acceptable for a 70+ year-old film. Black-and-white contrast is rich with a thick grain structure throughout and only the occasional bit of softness suggesting some clean-up boosting. This high-def transfer looks very good overall.

Audio:

The linear PCM mono track is crisp and efficient as we've come to expect from Criterion's single-channel presentations. No damage or distortion is audible. The score by Leo Shuken and Charles Bradshaw is treated pretty well by this lossless audio. Optional English subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

Criterion has imported the extras from the 2001 SD release and added one more.

The new one is a great visual essay (2014, 17 min.) written and directed by critic David Cairns and titled “Ants In Your Plants of 1941,” a playful suggestion that it's a kissing cousin to the next film the rehabilitated Sullivan is going to make. This essay features narration by director Bill Forsyth (of “Local Hero” fame) who is a big fan of the film. Forsyth and Cairns (in voice-over) trade off observations about the film; one new tidbit I picked up was that Sturges loosely based Sullivan's travels on real excursions by directors John Huston and William Wyler. Cairns admires the film while also noting that, like every other movie, it's not perfect.

The other features are repeats from the 2001 release, including the commentary by filmmakers Noah Baumbach, Kenneth Bowser and Christopher Guest and Michael McKean. They like the movie a little bit.

“Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of An American Dreamer” (75 min.) is an Emmy-award winning documentary directed by Kenneth Bowser and written by Todd McCarthy which aired in 1990 on PBS's “American Masters” series. It takes a pretty conventional approach to the writer-director's career but provides quite a bit of information in an entertaining, accessible manner.

The disc also includes a 2001 interview (13 min.) with Sandy Sturges, wife of the writer-director.

And we also get three Archival Audio clips: Sturges talking to Hedda Hopper (4 min., from a Jan 28, 1951 broadcast of “Hedda Hopper on Hollywood”), Sturges reciting the poem “If I Were A King” (1 min.) and Sturges singing “My Love” (1938, 1 min, 37 sec.), one of many songs he composed.

The slim fold-out booklet features an essay by critic Stuart Klawans.

Final Thoughts:

I used to hold the extreme populist premise of “Sullivan's Travels” against it, but I have since come to embrace its many obvious strengths instead. This high-def upgrade from Criterion only adds one new extra but it's a good one and the sharp new transfer is a strong one. Recommended, of course.