"Sullivan's Travels"

Below is a description of a profound scene from Preston Sturge's movie 1941 "Sullivan's Travels" starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake.   In writing and producing this movie, Mr. Sturges was attempting to lampoon the movies of Frank Capra. 

"Through the foggy mist rising off a swampy bayou and with low organ music playing "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen", a rural Negro church comes into view. A black preacher (Jess Lee Brooks) instructs a helper named Charlie to pull down a white sheet tacked to a piece of wood - a makeshift projection screen. The black parishioners are told that there's going to be "a little entertainment" - a pleasure that they will share "with some neighbors less fortunate than ourselves." The first three pews are cleared for the convicts, and the black worshippers are also instructed with a Biblical lesson that "neither by word, nor by action, nor by look to make our guests feel unwelcome, nor to draw away from or act high-toned. For we's all equal in the sight of God." During a community chorus of the old Negro spiritual "Go Down Moses", an unconventional musical number with an appropriate, empathic refrain of "Let my people go," the downtrodden, weary convicts shuffle (with the clanking of chains) toward and into the church in pairs. At a low angle from the front of the center aisle of the church, the camera focuses on the men's chained legs - an unusual chorus line - as they march in.


After they are seated, the lights are dimmed and a creaky old projector begins showing a 1934 Walt Disney cartoon - Playful Pluto - starring Mickey Mouse and Pluto [one of the last black & white cartoons Disney made]. The organ player accompanies the silent cartoon with a musical score. The convicts and churchgoers immediately begin laughing, guffawing, and smiling at the crazy antics of the mouse and dog - especially when Pluto gets stuck on flypaper and attempts to extricate himself but becomes even more entangled - a relevant image for Sullivan's situation. Sullivan sits glumly at first, but then looks around with amazement at the uproarious laughter from the audience. Soon, he irresistibly joins them in the infectious laughter, rhetorically asking himself: "Hey, am I laughing?" Sullivan suddenly realizes that humorous movies, like religion, are the therapeutic solution to the pain of poverty or to the enmity between races - comedies help people temporarily forget their troubles, release their suffering and escape from the hardships of the world. Even the warden's face is lit up with laughter."

Source for the above, click here.

After Sullivan (played by Joel McCrea) gains his release from the chain gang, he reminisces over his experiences and the camera replays the laugher scene in the movie theatre to focus on the laughing inmates' faces and Sullivan muses:

"There's a lot to be said for making people laugh! Did you know that's all some people have?"