Hannah and Her Sisters

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS                A        

USA  (103 mi)  1986  d:  Woody Allen

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

―somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond, by e.e. cummings, 1931, somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond | Academy ...                                              

Opening with the soaring notes of Harry James’ golden horn, You Made Me Love You - Harry James / Helen Forrest ... YouTube (3:18), this is one of the better Thanksgiving films, beginning and ending with a lavish Thanksgiving party given by the family of “three sisters,” borrowing liberally from the idea of the original Chekhov play, turning this into one of Allen’s most novelistic films.  Generous, warmhearted and funny, the complexity of the story unravels the lives and tangled relationships surrounding Hannah, who attempts to juggle a complicated life and a demanding family that includes her two sisters, her parents, her husband, ex-husband, and an assortment of friends and relatives, where this is the best ensemble piece in Allen’s career, a character driven drama, where the performances all enrich the dramatic detail of the story.  At its core this film feels very incestuous, with men lusting after and even stalking other sisters from the same family, possibly because their family throws such a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner party that it’s impossible not to want to be there.  Another way of looking at it is a Woody Allen love letter to Mia Farrow, providing a “romanticized” view of her, who as Hannah is at the center of a story that revolves around her two sisters, each of whom is lusted after by one husband or another, while she remains at center the rock of Gibraltar for the entire family, cooking and preparing the Thanksgiving dinners, while seven of her own children play themselves in the movie, including Soon-Yi Previn, Allen’s eventual wife, adding more than a touch of authenticity, while her own real-life mother, Maureen O’Sullivan, plays her mother.  Having been involved with Mia Farrow since 1980, this was their fifth of thirteen films made together, shot in Farrow’s own Central Park West apartment, with the camera moving in and out of the rooms, and is Allen’s variation of Ingmar Bergman’s autobiographical FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1982), opening with large theatrical families gathering together for three successive holiday celebrations, with Bergman’s film celebrating Christmas, displaying a restless tone of contentment in the first gathering, signs of turmoil and trouble in the second, with a resolution of the lingering troubles by the third.  Much like the short stories of Chekhov, a chapter heading opens each new sequence, with Allen, after having re-read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, experimenting with a literary style that intercuts and intertwines various stories.  It’s a film that shows a bohemian side of New York City that no longer exists, including Pageant Books and Tower Records, or Top Shop in Soho, all part of the existing landscape, with a trio of sisters that are beautifully written and brilliantly acted, saving one of the best roles for himself.  Shot by Carlo Di Palma, it all comes together with a painterly feel vividly capturing a romantic side of a contemporary 80’s New York bathed in an autumnal glow, enriched by a newfound maturity in the artist’s life.                                                     

Hannah (Mia Farrow) is the eldest of three sisters, with Holly (Dianne Wiest) as the middle child, a rebellious coke addict in the beginning of the film and something of a misfit, while Lee (Barbara Hershey) is the youngest, most sensual, a recovering alcoholic, and the target of interest from the leering eyes of Hannah’s husband Elliot (Michael Caine), who secretly longs for her.  Lee is involved in a relationship with an older father figure, Frederick (Max von Sydow), a gloomy artist and social recluse.  Hannah’s ex-husband is television producer Mickey Sachs (Woody Allen), a full-blown hypochondriac who believes he is suffering from symptoms of every known fatal disease, but more likely simply suffers from the stress and pressures of his fast-paced job.  While Holly is a struggling actress, she’s temporarily cofounder of the Stanislovski catering business that she runs with her friend April (Carrie Fisher), where they meet a dreamy architect with a love of opera, David (Sam Waterston), who takes them on an architectural tour of New York, Hannah And Her Sisters - David's architecture tour of New York YouTube (5:15), before dating them both, leaving Holly’s ego bruised as she thought he was exclusively into her.  While the sisters are very close, tension still exists between them, especially in the changeable lives of the younger sisters who look up to Hannah for stability, as she is a constant fixture in their lives, also the darling of her parent’s eyes as well, continually doting on her throughout their own tumultuous marriage, where Nora (Maureen O’Sullivan) is the ever flirtatious alcoholic who always wants to be the center of attention, both still thriving in acting careers of their own, while Evan (Lloyd Nolan) seems destined to always bring Norma back down to earth with quips like (in reference to Hannah), “I can only hope that she was mine!  With you as her mother, her father could be anybody in Actor's Equity!”, continually seen playing piano standards like “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” over the holidays, which becomes a central theme of the film.  Allen uses the voiceover to allow each character to describe their inner feelings, which also has a way of foreshadowing events that are about to happen.  What remains unclear is any backstory, as we never know what drew Hannah and Elliot together, especially since he’s immediately interested in someone else, attempting to show discretion, but he always seems to go out of his way to find her, and then very much like Frederick, he’ll suggest a book, a piece of music, or a poem, like the E.E. Cummings poem that he marks and notates as a reflection of his feelings for her.  Perhaps because she needed to get out from under the authoritarian vice grip of Frederick, she opens the door for Elliot, which is bit surprising, considering the respect the sisters have for Hannah, but that is one of the central strands of the storyline.  Allen, of course, frames Frederick’s realization that Lee is having an affair with a despairing rant about the state of the world, as he’s actually been bored by the mediocrity of television:

You missed a very dull TV show on Auschwitz.  More gruesome film clips and more puzzled intellectuals declaring their mystification over the systematic murder of millions.  The reason they can never answer the question ‘How could it possibly happen?’ is that it’s the wrong question.  Given what people are, the question is ‘Why doesn’t it happen more often?’

You see the whole culture.  Nazis, deodorant salesmen, wrestlers, beauty contests, a talk show.  Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling?  But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers.  Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money.  Money, money, money!  If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.           

Allen as himself is easily the funniest thing in the film, identifying himself in a chapter entitled “the hypochondriac,” perhaps initiated by a flashback sequence revealing his marriage with Hannah came apart when a medical report indicated that his sperm was infertile and he was unable to have children.  Causing him complete embarrassment and utter humiliation, she asks if he might have ruined himself somehow, perhaps from “excessive masturbation?”  In an amusing scene, he then awkwardly asks his best friend if he’d like to father Hannah’s child by artificial insemination?  After the divorce, for whatever reason he goes on a disastrous date with Holly, which is like a date from Hell, where she’s literally scooping spoonfuls of cocaine into her nostrils at an ear-splitting punk performance in the filth of CBGB’s that simply alienates Mickey, telling her “I’m afraid once they’re done singing they’re gonna take hostages!”  When she slams the door in his face afterwards getting into a taxi, he tells her “I had a great evening.  It was like the Nuremberg Trials.”  Later, unexpected hearing loss leads to thoughts of cancer and a brain tumor, where he’s already plotting out methods of suicide, where he may have to take his entire family with him.  The build-up of mental exhaustion sends him into an existential tailspin of endless despair, believing life is meaningless.  Finding no rational explanation for God, he even hilariously experiments with converting to Catholicism, an experience that apparently includes a crucifix, white bread and mayonnaise, which freaks out his own Jewish parents who weren’t even aware you could do things like that.  Thoroughly desperate, Mickey would try anything to find meaning in life, even talking to the Hare Krishna’s singing and dancing in the park, reading their literature, but everywhere he looked he could find no answers, seen eventually perplexed and confused by a holographic Jesus in a religious bookstore.  His moment of revelation comes at the most dire moment, following an unsuccessful suicide attempt where he simply wanders the upper west side streets of New York endlessly.  Tired and exhausted he winds up at a revival movie house watching a movie, which quickly becomes reminiscent of the “Let My People Go” Go Down Moses - Sullivan's Travels (1941) - YouTube (3:31) sequence from Sullivan's Travels (1941) where a chain gang sits down in an all-black church to watch a movie together with the parishioners.  The director Preston Sturges intended to play a Chaplin film, but rights were denied, instead playing a Disney Mickey Mouse cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse 1934 Playful Pluto - Video Dailymotion (7:22), where Pluto’s paws continually get caught on fly paper, where the animated pranks and pratfalls leave the congregation in stitches, a welcome relief from the otherwise harsh human conditions of the Great Depression.  In Mickey’s case, of course, the holy grail of movies turns out to be the crazy antics of the Marx Brothers in DUCK SOUP (1933), Duck Soup (10/10) Movie CLIP - To War (1933) HD YouTube (3:28), which resuscitates his declining spirits, deciding life should be enjoyed, rather than always having to be understood.   

I went upstairs to the balcony, and I sat down, and the movie was a film that I’d seen many times in my life since I was a kid, and I always loved it.  I’m watching these people up on the screen and I started getting hooked on the film.  I started to feel, how can you even think of killing yourself, I mean isn’t it so stupid.  Look at all the people up there on the screen, they’re real funny, and what if the worst is true.  What if there is no God and you only go around once and that’s it.  Well, ya know, don’t you wanna be part of the experience?  You know, what the hell it’s not all a drag.  And I’m thinking to myself, Jeez, I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I’m never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts.  And after who knows, I mean maybe there is something, nobody really knows.  I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that’s the best we have.  And then I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself.

Continually borrowing money from Hannah for her next project, Holly abandons her acting and catering careers to try her hand at writing with a script that seems to reveal personal details of Hannah and Elliot’s relationship, including secrets never revealed by Hannah to either of her sisters, so she’s shocked to see her life exposed under such scrutiny, threatening to expose Elliot’s relationship with Lee, who was mysteriously able to provide insight that even Hannah was not aware of.  When questioned, Elliot disavows having anything to do with it, but this revelation makes Lee step back, as her affair is obviously threatening her sister, so by the second Thanksgiving she ends the relationship and decides to go back to school.  Hannah, however, is stung by the revelations that she’s viewed as so saintly that she doesn’t need anybody, that she’s self-sufficient and overly focused to the point that she displays no weaknesses or vulnerabilities, always being so reliant and taking care of others that she becomes impenetrable, which is another way of indicating she doesn’t let anyone else get truly close to her.  Everyone in the film is exposed, while at the same time showing signs of envy and even harboring thoughts of secret bitterness at the success of others, making this one of the most complicated films that he’s ever written, where errors and imperfections are sympathized with along with personal strengths.  Emerging from this myriad of relationships drifting apart and coming together, the film brings out the most important ingredients of life and love, while still exploring feelings of jealousy, confusion, sibling rivalry, sadness, loneliness, and most especially hope.  Rather than an out-of-place side character lost in the struggles of depression and self-loathing, Allen’s own personality infuses this film with the same sense of humanity found in the other characters,  In fact, his search for meaning in a meaningless world and what passes for organized religion becomes quite touching, where his affirmation of life rises above the typical cynicism found in his other works.  Only by learning from their previous mistakes do they eventually discover their humanity.  The knock on the film is that it is too warm and optimistic, where the ending is at odds with the bleak realism of all but the last fifteen minutes, as the original ending had Elliot still with Hannah, but in love with Lee, who had married someone else, where he was forced to relive the same nightmarish feelings of personal torment, doomed to forever see her at family parties, a constant reminder of what he had lost, leaving him emotionally adrift, drowning in his sorrows, which Allen recalled “was so down for everyone that there was a huge feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction every time I screened it.”  He also filmed more explicit sex scenes between Hershey and Caine that were also cut, but it all comes together in the end with Mickey accidentally running into Holly in a record store, rekindling forgotten feelings, allowing him to read something she wrote that he genuinely admires, finally affirming Holly’s long felt ambition, bringing a note of tenderness and optimism to an emerging expression of love.  Both Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest won Academy Awards in the supporting actor categories, while Allen won for best original screenplay.  The film is listed at #4 from The Guardian Poll, published October 4, 2013, "The 10 best Woody Allen films".

H.E.A.L.T.H.

H.E.A.L.T.H.        B                
aka:  HealtH

aka:  Happiness, Energy And Longevity Through Health

USA  (105 mi)  1980  ‘Scope  d:  Robert Altman

Altman goes straight for the jugular with this one, a carnivalesque satire on political hysteria, another example of the director assembling order from the mass chaos on the movie set, as there are few moments in this film where there aren’t a half a dozen things happening at once.  Set entirely on the grounds of the upscale Don Cesar Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida, the events take place at a health convention where rival candidates Lauren Bacall and Glenda Jackson are vying for the presidency of the organization.  Bacall as “the first lady of health” is hilarious as a wind up doll who raises her arms triumphantly as she espouses one catch phrase or another, often repeating them, each time to applause and fanfare before running out of energy where she sits motionless in the exact same position until someone winds her up again, while Jackson keeps spouting historical speech phrases from a bygone age about the glories of democracy, every word of which is ignored as she may as well be reading off the back of a cereal box for all the interest it generates.  Bacall may be Altman’s take on Ronald Reagan reading from the teleprompters, who was just about to be elected President while they were making this film, while Jackson was the dour and humorless voice of the Democrats, personified by the decency of Adlai Stevenson, a man who droned on endlessly about public virtues but who put everyone in the room to sleep, where parts of Jackson’s ramblings were supposedly taken directly from his speeches.  Stanley Kubrick made the most scathing use out of Stevenson, making him President in DR. STRANGELOVE (1964), where that is the biting sarcastic tone of this film where everything in politics is fair game. 

The end of the Carter era represented the rise of special interest groups, self-serving organizations taking themselves a bit too seriously, lending themselves to buffoonery and political parody, shown dressed up as a variety of fruits and vegetables, often seen as little more than celebrity seekers, where Altman delights in showing just how far these groups will go for attention.  Each candidate has handlers who prepare them for the television cameras and their public appearances, while behind the scenes are lowlife characters paid to perform all the dirty tricks.  One such character is the smooth talking opportunist James Garner, Bacall’s campaign manager who continually pulls her out of the public’s eyes when she’s wound down, while another is Henry Gibson in drag trying to spread some dirt on Bacall’s opponent, suggesting she is really a he.  Joining the fray is Carol Burnett as a Presidential emissary on health, filling in for the previous emissary who was discovered dead.  The three are brought together by TV broadcaster Dick Cavett, playing himself as a talk show host covering the convention, seen through a hotel window lying in bed every night and gleefully watching his arch rival Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, who attempts to interview the candidates while all around them are singing groups, marching bands (The Steinettes!!), and anyone else seeking their fifteen minutes of fame, all vying for the audience’s attention, so the mayhem and confusion on the set is reminiscent of the burlesque era of the Marx Brothers at their most undisciplined.  Despite the confusion, there are well written zingers in this one that fly fast and furious, but also exaggerated caricatures, like Donald Moffat as Colonel Cody, the spitting image of Buffalo Bill, a zillionaire who goes on a right wing rant about owning not just the convention, but the government itself, believing everybody works for him, “Lady, you have told me what I wanted to hear.  Your are for real.  That means you are no threat to anyone,”or lengthy improvisations that seemingly come out of nowhere, like Alfre Woodard as the black public relations director of the hotel, the only woman of sanity in the entire film, suddenly thrust into one of Cavett’s interviews, or Jackson’s ditzy secretary, Diane Stilwell as Willow Wertz, another typical dumb blond, but this one has no feelings in her vagina, so she’s never had sex.  But of course, neither has Lauren Bacall, claiming she’s an 83 year old virgin!!   It’s all pretty ridiculous, but that’s the point. 

Even with all the hoopla and non-stop frenzy, somehow, despite all the staging theatrics, with its multi-stranded plotlines, cast of thousands, and clever use of layered dialogue, where the film is this close from turning into a full-blown musical number, Altman actually has a handle on things just as they are on the verge of spinning out of control.  The title actually comes from the slogan Happiness, Energy And Longevity Through Health, using a health food convention as a stand-in for the often sleazy and underhanded practices that occur during an election year, where lying becomes the universal truth, so long as it’s properly packaged, where everything is an illusion, a manipulation of words and images, as even Colonel Cody is not the right wing zealot he would have us believe, but is instead Lauren Bacall’s crazy brother, where the health food convention is followed by a convention of hypnotists.  Twentieth Century Fox studios wouldn’t release this in an actual election year, finding it too controversial, and after a series of financial setbacks refused to distribute it altogether, so it sat on the shelf until Altman took it to colleges and film festivals, eventually releasing it himself two years later in 1982.  It has a similar history of no video or DVD release, supposedly due to music infringements, but Altman himself wrote the lyrics for one of the songs used, “Chick and Thin,” while another, a jingle called “Exercise Your Right to Vote” was a theme song used in a later Altman film, TANNER ’88 (1988).  However, the sounds of political convention music are heard wall to wall throughout this film, like “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” “Happy Days Are Here Again,” “The Grand Old Party,” “It’s a Grand Old Flag,” or “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,” none of which received musical clearance.  On June 12, 1982, President Ronald Reagan watched the film at Camp David, where in his diary he called it “the world’s worst movie.”  Released in the same year as Spielberg’s E.T. (1982), which became the highest grossing film in history, the age of the director was over, as blockbusters altered the landscape by changing the whole business of film finance.  For Altman and others, including Martin Scorsese, in the 80’s it became more difficult than ever to finance their films.   

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?             A                    

USA  Great Britain  France  (107 mi)  2000  ‘Scope  d:  Joel and Ethan Coen

O Muse,

Sing in me, and through me tell the story

Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending

A wanderer, harried for years on end…

Writing, directing, producing, and editing their own films, this series of FARGO (1996), THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998), and O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? may be the peak of the Coen Brother invention and creativity.  Originating in the mind of Preston Sturges from the great American classic Sullivan's Travels (1941), this Coen Brothers manic romp through the American South plays like a double bill, stealing the title from the film Sullivan originally wanted to make about the Great Depression, returning to the era of the 1930’s.  While the film is a wildly exaggerated comical farce throughout, creating a mythical landscape filled with colorful characters that all resemble Southern stereotypes, similarly evolving through a series of surrealist, Odysseus-like misadventures, turning into a meandering heroic journey of self-discovery, overcoming plenty of “ob-stack-les” along the way.  While this doesn’t have the heft of the original, where madcap comedy is mixed with rare dramatic realism, creating an underlying core of poverty-laden bleakness, the Coens are instead content to maintain a subversive tone of screwball comedy throughout, where much like Sullivan’s conversion at the end of his travails, he just wanted to make a tribute to comedy.  Who better than the Coens to make a mockery of some rather grand Southern traditions, yet in doing so, they retain something essentially American in the process, where free speech is one of our founding principles.  Opening with a prison break, 3 escapees from the Mississippi Parchman Farm chain gang become our anointed heroes on the journey, the slick-haired, sharp-tongued George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill, the ringleader of the pack, with John Turturro as Pete, the eternally pessimistic and constantly complaining sidekick, and the ever loveable Tim Blake Nelson as the sweetly generous and overly optimistic but “dumb as rocks” Delmar.  Chained together in prison garb, they create quite a sight, but the clue to their success is their constant, congenial banter, where Ulysses is always philosophizing about some nonsense, with Pete his constant foil and nemesis, with Delmar always dreaming about something else entirely.  Adding to the film’s massive appeal is the eclectic country music soundtrack produced by T-Bone Burnett, including spirituals, gospel, delta blues, country, a capella, folk music, and swing, becoming a major component of the film, winning the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2001 GRAMMY® Album of the Year for 2001, O Brother, Where Art Thou ..., where the movie is single-handedly responsible for a bluegrass revival in America.  

Adding a digitally enhanced sepia tone, the cinematography by Roger Deakins captures that dusty look of endless dirt roads and golden hue’d crops, where the prison breakout music used is “Big Rock Candy Mountain” BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAINS - Harry Mac McClintock ... - YouTube (2:29), adding an element of fantasy and colorful hobo storytelling, where the period-specific music continues to be part of the story.  With the bloodhounds after them, almost immediately we’re immersed in the mythical aspect of the tale, where a blind black man drives a railway handcar that they hoist themselves onto for a getaway, where he mystifyingly foretells their future in exact detail, a reference to Homer, the ancient blind Greek author of The Odyssey.   After a brief incident with the law, where Ulysses can continually be heard muttering “Damn! We're in a tight spot!” a little kid gets them out of a jam with his reckless driving, exactly as in the Sturges film, where we discover Ulysses has a thing for Dapper Dan hair gel, leaving a trail of empty tin cans behind.  Despite their continuing series of misadventures, discovering sexually promiscuous sirens at a riverbank The Sirens - O Brother, Where Art Thou? (5/10) Movie ... - YouTube (3:30), picking up Tommy, a young black guitarist (Chris Thomas King) at a crossroads who sold his soul to the Devil, a reference to Delta blues great Robert Johnson who wrote the song “Cross Road Blues” Robert Johnson CrossRoads - Cross Road Blues ... YouTube (2:29), making a brief appearance at a rural radio station where as the Soggy Bottom Boys they cut a record that becomes an instant hit across the South (even to Mobile, Alabama!), O Brother Where Art Though - The Soggy Bottom Boys - I ... - YouTube (3:29), a bullet-filled run-in with Pretty Boy Floyd on a bank robbery spree, where they never appear far from the chain gang, who continually reappear throughout the film.  Again mirroring a scene from the original, but with a slightly demented twist, Ulysses is in a movie theater with Delmar discussing the unavoidable untrustworthiness of women in general when sheriffs appear with rifles at both exits and the movie stops.  Thinking they are in another tight spot about to be apprehended, the sheriffs usher the chain gang into the theater, as they are granted permission to watch the movies.   

Cultural references abound in this film, where in several instances the screen visualization is a reference to Eudora Welty WPA photographs, where a remote broken down shack matches the boyhood home of Ulysses, MWP Welty Gallery: Home with Bottle-trees (photograph), while earlier we saw two young kids carrying large blocks of ice down a country road, Carrying the Ice Home for Sunday Dinner « AZ SOAP.  A corrupt governor’s race becomes part of the background, with all the hick populist mannerisms and good ‘ol boy jokes, where the song “You Are My Sunshine” was the theme song of Louisiana’s two-term “Singing Governor” Jimmie Davis Jimmie Davis You Are My Sunshine - YouTube (2:54), and where Ulysses’ long unseen wife Penelope (Holly Hunter) is being courted by the campaign manager of the reform candidate, promising more of a stable future than Ulysses can offer, leaving him moping about his rotten luck.  In what is easily the most controversial sequence, in a film that features remarkable set pieces, our heroes have an accidental run-in with a Klu Klux Klan rally, which is choreographed like a Busby Berkeley musical, yet resembles the menace of the flying monkeys marching in formation in THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939).  Our heroes are honor bound to crash the lynching party to rescue Tommy, where the Grand Wizard is, of course, one of the gubernatorial candidates who is seen later getting run out of town on a rail.  Escaping under cover of Marx Brothers style mayhem and pandemonium, this is all part of the Coen Brothers whimsical comic madness, where the entire film is a series of setbacks, disasters, escapes and near misses, where death is always close at hand.  Yet through it all, these lead characters maintain their essential goodness through their flair for comic goofiness and unending naiveté.  George Clooney apparently rehearsed for weeks to sing the signature song “A Man of Constant Sorrow,” ultimately sung by Dan Tyminski, a member of the band Alison Krauss and Union Station, but he does get credit for his own on-stage moves, a kind of Appalachian chicken dance that the choreographers hated but always made the Coens laugh, O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU - Constant ... YouTube (7:05).  A film literally steeped in popular culture, it shows America at its best, warts and all, where folksy, down to earth humor literally rules the day.  It was Sullivan who had a change of heart and decided even the most wretched and troublesome souls facing a lifetime in prison could be moved by the joy of laughter, where humanity universally has a soft spot for comedy.