Sullivan's Travels - The Case of the Hanging Legs

[Danvers Carew]

I was watching Preston Sturges's rather excellent Sullivan's Travels recently and was reminded of the hanging-munchkin-esque rumour attached to this film. I've always meant to ask about this on snopes - I assume it's been covered before, but can't find anything.

Basically, there's a scene where you can see two legs dangling from a tree, which aren't explained. There seems to be some debate over whether this is some sort of deliberate in-joke or a mistake (maybe a crew-man accidentally in shot) or part of a longer scene that's been left in though the rest has been cut, or even...uh-oh!...a real dead body!

Here's a page going into it in more detail. According to this, there's even an additional scene in the film featuring another mysterious hanging leg.

So what's the story? I watched the relevant scene a few times and it does appear to be a pair of legs, so I'm reasonably sure this isn't actually a case of a stork flapping its wings or something, but I'm prepared to change my mind if someone will convince me otherwise. Anyone dig up anything or offer an explanation?

[mags]

Wow, can you imagine how big those legs would have looked on the big screen?

It makes me satisfied that with the internet, if anyone noticed something like that in a current movie, you'd be able to find out about it. At the time of Sullivan's Travels, even if someone did notice it, they'd probably be looked at like they had two heads if they mentioned it to a friend afterwards.

[Billy Beccles]

I have looked at my only copy of Sullivan's Travels which is a scrappy tattered telly version introduced by Terry Jones. (He introduced four Sturges films in the BBC2 Film Club season of Autumn 1989. You would think if anybody is going to point out the legs and explain their presence, it would be him.)

Not a word.

Oh well, I thought, maybe the print they showed didn't have any sequence with dangling legs? But no, fifty-four minutes in, Joel McCRea and Veronica Lake are walking by the water and those are definitely legs dangling from a tree for no good reason.

The best I can think of for the moment is that according to Jones, Preston Sturges would set up a way of conveying somebody's state of mind that you might notice if you were observant; and that you would rave about if you were an intellectual with a black beret athwart your barnet and a pluming Gauloise dangling from your lower lip.

His example is in Hail The Conquering Hero where Eddie Cantor (I think) has to cross the bar-room to telephone his mam and tell her he's back from the war. (He doesn't want to do it because he didn't do much.) The earlier shots show the bar to be full, but when he goes over to the phone, it's empty. There's no reason given for the people disappearing, but you get the idea that all of a sudden he's very lonely. You also don't actually notice the bar is empty until somebody points it out with their Gauloise.

So maybe the legs - you can see them, but you can also see them out of the corner of your eye if you take my meaning - have something to do with Sullivan's despair? He's just lost his good shoes, he's had to take work as a sandwich-board man, he can't get back in touch with Hollywood, and things are starting to go downhill for him. Thank God Veronica Lake snuggles up to him as the scene ends, that's what I say.

How come on these choices they always miss out
D-A total fabrication.

[Danvers Carew]

Originally Posted by lazerus the duck

How come on these choices they always miss out
D-A total fabrication.

Not sure I follow you. There does certainly appear to be a pair of legs on screen, so I don't think this can be dismissed as 'made up'.

Billy Beccles - cheers! Your idea is about as likely as anything else. My feeling is that it's some sort of in-joke or just summit arty, like. Could it be some sort of reference to the general feeling of the population during the Depression, i.e. people are hanging themselves left, right and centre?

The reason I posted it in 'Entertainment ULs' rather than just 'amusement bark' is that I once read a messageboard or something where people were counting this as an example of real dead bodies on film - that the mysterious hanging person was an actual corpse (obvious UL material). Can't locate anything like that now though!

Here it is clear as day as reported by Snopes

[Danvers Carew]

Originally Posted by lazerus the duck

Here it is clear as day as reported by Snopes

Oh, sorry, I get ya now! You're referring to the hanging munchkin in The Wizard of Oz. Something that this thread isn't about.