Coffee and Noir: SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS

every instance of coffee in noir: 040

You learn a lot about a noir character by their coffee: sugar? cream? more whiskey than caffeine?

I’m cataloging every noir scene where coffee plays a role — rote and ritual, soul-dark or cream and sugar, served from dingy diners to shiny penthouses.

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Preston Sturges directed another dramedy in which I’m counting noir of its genres, and Sullivan’s Travels has everything that film did, PLUS noir stalwart Veronica Lake who is simply named ‘The Girl’ for even more noir points.

John L. Sullivan (McCrea) and The Girl meet over a cup of coffee.

Coffee and a donut (sinker) is Sullivan’s go-to order. Later, as they travel ‘incognito’ it’s all they can afford; or in some cases, NOT afford.

If you don’t have enough for food, drinking coffee may help you forget about that fact, just for a little while.

When John and The Girl don’t have enough, the cafe owner gives them two cups on the house — a bit of kindness that sticks out precisely because so little else in their life is going right, and because John’s thesis of hoboes being discriminated against is most thoroughly proven elsewhere.