Just the very concept of this film in general. A well-known Hollywood comedy director feels he must experience first-hand what it was like to be poor and downtrodden before making his next film, which would be a social realism film to keep up with the times.
Sullivan's butler Burrows' speech to Sullivan about poverty.
Burrows: Poverty is not the lack of anything, but a positive plague, virulent in itself, contagious as cholera, with filth, criminality, vice and despair as only a few of its symptoms. It is to be stayed away from, even for purposes of study. It is to be shunned.
The iconic fast-paced chase scene of the studio's entourage trailing Sullivan.
The brief scene where Joseph's portrait changes his facial expression.
Sullivan's first interaction with Veronica Lake's character simply known as "The Girl" in a diner.
The Girl tricking Sullivan and shoving him into his own pool, as payback for being lied to about being poor and "made fun of" in her words.
The Girl dressing herself up as a male hobo and their wanderings as hoboes traveling across America to experience poverty for themselves.
The scene of a thought-to-be-dead and incarcerated Sullivan in a prison farm watching a screening of a Pluto/Mickey Mouse cartoon – and laughing along with his fellow, hardened Georgia chain-gang prisoners.
Sullivan's inspired return to making film comedies.
