Good Sam

Oh, where to begin with "Good Sam" (1948). It is widely agreed, that the film broke Leo McCarey's 10+ year streak of masterful films. McCarey, who directed and produced the film while also contributing to the story, would never truly recover from this blow, and his subsequent filmography includes three debated entries and one successful re-make of an old McCarey classic. "Good Sam" is therefore an easy film to glance over, as it returned its maker back amidst the mortals. It is also unlike most American comedies of the time, which may have been the reason why the same critics who loved "Make Way for Tomorrow" (1937) and "Going My Way" (1944) did not warm up to the way similar themes are tossed around in "Sam".

Gary Cooper plays Sam Clayton, a clean-cut, post-war family man loved by his community. Sam is the kindest man you could find, always willing to help anybody in distress as best he can. In another Cooper film, a character like this would be viewed as the ideal that we should all emulate, but McCarey is here to show the other side. Sam's constant helping of others grows to be a strain on his family, who are unable to lead a normal life because of it. He borrows people money while his own family lacks the money to buy a proper house for themselves. He is constantly finding new "characters" who benefit from his good nature, much to the suffering of Sam's wife Lu, played by Ann Sheridan.

I think "Good Sam" is a fantastic premise, as the central dilemma is something that all people will - and should! - sometimes have to consider. Helping others is important, it is a central aspect of what defines us as human. But empathy is only good when the behavior of others mirrors it, otherwise a good man can end up being used. I like the fact that the film does not play all its cards immediately, but gives us different view points. Considering that the film is trying both to be funny and to be moving and frustrating, it reached these goals with me. I laughed, I was moved, and I definitely was frustrated...

Where does it fall flat then? It is hard to pinpoint really. The film starts off very comedic. Ann Sheridan gives a wonderful performance as the housewife pushed to the edge, and Cooper's buffoonish behavior and general inability to read his lady is certainly a fitting catalyst for Sheridan's wrath. The characters are well-established as they both get laughs and serve as each other's straight men. But as the film went on, I started to feel that the comedic nature of the main dilemma does not fit to the everyday realism of the narrative. McCarey has taken delightfully comedic characters and inserted them to a very serious film. And it is the mismatch of it all that breaks the experience. There is both serious comedy and funny melodrama here, and someday someone will call this a forgotten masterpiece, but for me the whole is shaky even if the parts work.

There is also individual elements that clash, the worst of which being the inclusion of a suicide subplot that gets treated as if killing yourself is not a big deal in the slightest. The woman in question (Joan Lorring) attempts to kill herself because she fell in love with a treacherous married man, and the film lets Sheridan shame her, while simultaneously suggesting, that the cure for this woman is to find a nice, unmarried man and get married. How very psychological indeed. Lorring also gives the film's worst performance, as she is way too polished for a suicidal woman.

"Good Sam" also resembles better films, and feels therefore worse than it is. Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" (1960) is a more famous serious comedy about a guy who gets taken advantage of, also including a more believable suicide-attempt narrative, treated with respect to the sore subject matter. Yet the film that "Good Sam" will bring to mind for most is Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), another tale about an every-man who is always helping others but can't catch a break for himself. McCarey's film also finds its protagonist in a bar, on Christmas. Compared to George Bailey, Sam Clayton looks very two dimensional.

Even with all the negative sides addressed, "Good Sam" is easily worth a watch. McCarey is one of the all time greats and lack of perfection is not a crime. His film carries serious merit and is very ambitious, and although I mentioned two similar films, it actually does stand out from a crowd with its style and subject.

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.

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.

This movie is less than two hours long. I would have sworn it was almost three. It drags something awful. How could the same director who had just previously made "Going My Way" and the less inspired but still enjoyable "Bells of St. Mary's" have allowed his actors to deliver such leaden performances?

And who approved this script??? There isn't an ounce of humor in it. Gary Cooper's character is not nice so much as just plain dull and stupid. It's as if he wears a sign that says "Kick me" on his back and really means it.

Ann Sheridan's character, who should be the center of reason here, is presented as materialistic, more interested in shoes and dresses than her family. It makes it harder for us to sympathize with her.

Everything here falls flat. What previous reviewers who found this funny found to laugh at I honestly cannot guess.

If you want to watch a Leo McCarey films, there are some great ones to pick from. But avoid this. And if you do start it, don't tell yourself "It has to get better." It never does.

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.