Good Sam

This spoof was kind of tedious and one joke. I was cheering for something bad to happen to Sam and his freeloaders. Louise Beavers being in on the family dysfunction with Ann Sheridan was amusing. But Gary Cooper as Sam simply put his wife and family dead last. His wife was not a partner, she was a house slave he took for granted and never consulted as an equal. The neighbors kids came before his children. Some might think this is a satire on Christian charity. It was actually a joke movie about a man's compulsion to sacrifice his family's wants and needs to satisfy others....any needy soul will do. All without considering them. If there wasn't one he'd probably dig one up to sacrifice for. Why? What was at the heart of his compulsion? I know it was a comedy but his compulsion had to hold some credibility. While I was watching this movie I boiled at the prospect of being married to a guy like Sam.

In this comedy-drama from Leo McCarey, Gary Cooper plays Sam, seemingly the one guy in the world who takes the Christian tenet of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you seriously. And for his efforts, he is constantly being taken advantage of to the point that his wife, the sassy Ann Sheridan, is ready to take the kids and leave him. Sly writing relieves some of the sappiness, and Cooper has such a solid male presence that he doesn't seem terminally wimpy despite the fact that others use him like a doormat. Finally, after Sam threatens to abandon his Good Samaritan philosophy, all his selfless deeds pay off, and his family comes together in a warm, homespun conclusion. To those who say this isn't worthy of Capra, well, I love Capra, but McCarey has a body of work that any director would be proud of.

Sam Clayton (Gary Cooper) is going the extra mile to be a good Samaritan. His wife Lu (Ann Sheridan) is starting to get annoyed. He loans his car to the Butlers which keeps getting worst. He's letting her no-good brother Claude to live with them. He keeps helping no matter what it costs him and it rarely goes well.

Critics are a little too hard on this film. It's a fun light-hearted take on the feel-good sentimentalism of the era. Certainly, Cooper is deadening his performance. He's almost playing it as a clueless rube but his character knows more than he's letting on. On the other hand, I love Sheridan's performance. She never lets her character fall out of love with him despite her conflicting feelings. The bus is a fun setup and I love the woman rushing into the store. The 'It's a Wonderful Life' ending is a bit tacked on. I would be more happy with the brother and Shirley Mae as the emotional climax and ending. In a way, that's the most important gift Sam ever gives. That's the emotional heart because it's probably more important to Lu. The story makes the house more important by placing it at the end.

It took three years for Leo McCarey to get back to the screen after directing Bing Crosby in that double barreled triumph of Going My Way and The Bells of St.Mary's. Sad to say, Good Sam didn't quite live up to the standards of those two films. Leo took no Oscar nominations home for this one.

Gary Cooper is a fine upstanding citizen with wife Ann Sheridan and two small kids and a mooching live-in brother-in-law played by Dick Ross. He's an impulsive do gooder, an easy touch for a sob story and a handout. He drives poor Ann to distraction. A sermon by minister Ray Collins at the beginning of the film on the virtues of charity put Cooper's generosity into overdrive.

It's a nice film, maybe a bit too unbelievable. I can't believe that Ann Sheridan hadn't taken Coop in tow by this point of her marriage. Two noted baseball immortals, Babe Ruth and Dizzy Dean, had in common the fact that they both married strong willed women who took charge of the finances lest their hubbys give it all away.

Still I did like the message of the film which is delivered by Harry Hayden who has a small role as a banker. Coop's generosity not only with cash, but co-signing loans for various people has put him as a credit risk. When he needs the money he can't get a loan from the bank. But later on Hayden comes over to the house and tells Sheridan that he changed his mind and approved the loan for their new house. Character and decency should count for something. It was a very similar message to one that was delivered in a far better film, The Best Years of Our Lives when Fredric March as a veteran who returns to his job as a bank loan officer, approves a loan to a veteran on the strength of his character.

Character and decency should count, but Coop's pants pockets still needed a lock put on them.

Leo McCarey's Good Sam, the story of a suburban good guy who can't say no to his friends and neighbors, should have been a masterpiece. It has many of the same ingredients as It's a Wonderful Life, and was directed and co-written by a man who was at his best Frank Capra's equal. McCarey directed the best Marx Brothers picture, Duck Soup, plus the splendid Ruggles Of Red Gap, the heartbreaking Make Way For Tomorrow, the enormously popular (if overlong) Going My Way, and its sequel, The Bells Of St. Mary's. He was even in a partnership with Capra, to produce films independently, but lost his touch after the war. Good Sam shows McCarey's brilliance with actors, all of whom (Gary Cooper, Ann Sheridan, Ray Collins, William Frawley) are excellent, but the script is convoluted and the story, an inspired idea, is, as told, hard to follow. It's worth watching, for McCarey's directorial "touches", which are wonderful, but the film is plodding and episodic, and seems to go on forever.