In the first example, are you referring to Judge Weaver's instructions regarding the word "panties?"
He certainly didn't find it funny, which is why he brought attention to it. Other than that, one has to keep in mind that 1959 was a much different time than today. Language usage was more formal and polite. While "panties" is not by any stretch a gross obscenity, even then, it was not something heard publicly very often. Women were simply much more modest about such things. So, the mere utterance of such things were considered suggestive, if not necessarily risqué. So, it's something that, at that time, would naturally cause an audience to snicker like this, as opposed to gasp in shock; a very mild, humorous-sounding profanity, along the lines of, say, "boobies" or "pee pee."
As far as the others, again, taken in their context, they make sense. The desire to desert was certainly something understood by a vast amount of American men at the time. To me, it seems pretty easy to understand now, really. We all worry about folding to cowardice under threat and pressure, so it's easy relate to and laugh about after the fact. Having gone through two major wars (WWII & Korea) within two decades by 1959, along with the continuing draft, military humor was a shared experience amongst the American public.
We have gotten so conditioned to being overly-sensitive to "threatening" language (ironic considering how saturated our culture is in obscenity) that it is indeed surprising to hear Biegler so openly threaten Dancer. Again, keep in mind, this was a different society that generally accepted such things as impassioned, yes, but somewhat jocular. To me, the question isn't so much that Beigler would actually hit Dancer in court, but rather why the judge repeatedly allowed such outbursts without consequence (don't get me wrong, I loved how Weaver was portrayed!).
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