Editing Sullivan's Travels (section)

===Critical response===
''Sullivan's Travels'' was not immediately successful at the box office as were earlier Sturges films such as ''[[The Great McGinty]]'' and ''[[The Lady Eve]]'', and received mixed critical reception. Although the review in ''[[The New York Times]]'' called the film "the most brilliant picture yet this year" and praised Sturges' mix of escapist fun with underlying significance, ''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]'' said that it lacked the "down to earth quality and sincerity which made [Sturges's] other three pictures a joy to behold" and that "Sturges...fails to heed the message that writer Sturges proves in his script. Laughter is the thing people want—not social studies." ''[[The New Yorker]]''{{'s}} review said that "anyone can make a mistake, Preston Sturges, even. The mistake in question is a pretentious number called ''Sullivan's Travels''."<ref name="afi"/> Nevertheless, the ''Times'' named it as one of the ten best films of 1941, and the [[National Board of Review]] nominated it as best picture of the year.

Over time, the reputation of the film has improved tremendously, and it is now considered a classic; at least one reviewer called it Sturges's "masterpiece" and "one of the finest movies about movies ever made."<ref name=erikson/> On the [[review aggregator]] website [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sullivans_travels/ |title=Sullivan's Travels |website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |access-date=May 12, 2024}}</ref>

In 2020, ''Diabolique Magazine'' described Lake's character as "captivating, magical, and extremely sexy, whether sitting on McCrea's lap in a bathrobe and combing his hair or walking along the road in a hobo overcoat ... She wasn't great with all her dialogue but Sturges made her spit it out at rapid-fire pace and protected her limitations. It's a performance for the ages."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://diaboliquemagazine.com/the-cinema-of-veronica-lake/|magazine=Diabolique Magazine|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|title=The Cinema of Veronica Lake|date=February 11, 2020}}</ref>