Joel McCrea is at his most rewarding when he takes a foolish man seriously. His unshowy manner suits Westerns, but we would begin with Sullivan's Travels, where he makes a misguided filmmaker worth caring about.
Fi1m perspective
In Sullivan's Travels (1941), Joel McCrea lets Sullivan believe that dressing as a tramp is a sensible way to learn about poverty. Sullivan is a filmmaker who wants to do important work, and McCrea gives that wish enough sincerity to keep the joke from turning sour. We laughed at how seriously he approached the disguise, because he made this inadequate preparation seem sufficient to Sullivan. He lets us see the mistake without asking us to despise the man making it. It is a fine use of an actor whose quiet manner can be mistaken for having little to do.
His leading roles through the 1930s and early 1940s took in adventure, drama and comedy. The steady presence suited Hitchcock's suspense in Foreign Correspondent (1940), before Preston Sturges put it to comic use in Sullivan's Travels and The Palm Beach Story (1942). George Stevens's The More the Merrier (1943), opposite Jean Arthur, offered another home for his relaxed charm. We particularly value that steadiness in comedy, where he can give an absurd undertaking the attention his character thinks it deserves.
Sturges wrote Sullivan with McCrea in mind, and the fit matters. Some notices of The Palm Beach Story found his delivery monotonous; we can see the risk in such an unshowy style. Here, though, we understand why Sullivan persists, even while the comedy exposes his poor judgement. Our reservation is about the film's sometimes comfortable defence of entertainment, rather than its leading performance. McCrea makes the man's ambition plausible enough that we can enjoy his mistakes without waiting for him to be humiliated.
From 1946 he worked almost exclusively in Westerns, with Rough Shoot (1953) the exception in the run through Ride the High Country (1962). That narrowing suited his taciturn presence, though it can obscure how useful he had been in comedy. Alongside Randolph Scott in Ride the High Country, his quiet strength makes Steve Judd a convincing Western lead. Start with Sullivan's Travels, and give McCrea some of the credit when the jokes land.
Biography
Joel McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned nearly five decades from the late 1920s to the 1970s. Born Joel Albert McCrea on 5 November 1905 in South Pasadena, California, he died on 20 October 1990 in Woodland Hills, California. He studied drama at Pomona College and began in films as an extra and stunt performer before signing with MGM in 1928.
McCrea appeared in more than one hundred films, starring in over eighty. He is known for roles in The Most Dangerous Game (1932), Dead End (1937), Union Pacific (1939), Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940), Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels (1941) and The Palm Beach Story (1942), The More the Merrier (1943), and later Westerns including Wichita (1955) and Ride the High Country (1962). He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his film work.
