Sullivan's Travels (1941): Sullivan Pitches Film

The clip sullivan pitches film from Sullivan's Travels (1941) with Joel McCrea, Robert Warwick

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 Hopalong 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 ashcans.
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.

1. By: AnyClip
2. Categories Entertainment
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4. Added :10-Nov-11
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