Pun Salad

People really like this one a lot (IMDB score 8.1, a solid 100% on the Tomatometer). It's fine; that's why I'm not a movie critic.

It tells the story of Hollywood director John L. Sullivan (played by Joel McCrea), who's bringing in big bucks making piffle that the masses love. But he desperately wants to make Important Tendentious Films. (In a nice touch, the movie opens with the closing scene of his latest effort in that area.) His associates pooh-pooh this ambition, telling him that he hasn't suffered enough to be a credible serious filmmaker. So he resolves to impersonate a hobo, hop freights, live like a desperately poor person.

And along the way, he picks up Veronica Lake. That would never happen today.

What's good: quite a bit of clever dialog, some very funny bits, a powerful scene set in an African-American church. (And this must have been very powerful back in 1941, when the movie was released.)

What's so-so: McCrea and Lake, wonderful as they might be, don't have a lot of acting range. And the movie's famous switcheroo, shifting from slapstick and satire to—oops—temporary utter seriousness didn't work too well for me.

I like the movie's ostensible thesis, though. Oddly enough, it brought this dialog from Woody Allen's Stardust Memories to mind:

Sandy Bates: But shouldn't I stop making movies and do something that counts, like-like helping blind people or becoming a missionary or something?

Voice of Martian: Let me tell you, you're not the missionary type. You'd never last. And-and incidentally, you're also not Superman; you're a comedian. You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes.