Good Sam (1948)

There's a difference between being good and being intelligently good. The former don't care much if their Pearls are being served to swine, the latter care very much about that and try to avoid it. The former do not fight capitalism, the latter do, because there is no other way to be good.There is no need for Charity in a system of absolute material equality and the intelligently good strive for that system. You see, those who Think that they are entitled to a thousand times more than other people are not good people, they are evil people, got it? If you are truly good, you will fight the system that make evil people the Winners, won't you? Got it? Good.Sam in this Movie don't Think much at all. He's a seller in a department store and at the same time he is supposed to be good. That is idiotic, period.The 3 votes out of 10 are for the performers of this Movie. They did not Think much either otherwise they would not be in this Movie but they have made other great stuff and therefore you will have to forgive them.

Good Sam is about a good samaritan, and how a couple has to deal with the troubles that the husband gets into doing all these good deeds. Kind of the testing of "Job" in the bible. The leads, Gary Cooper and Ann Sheridan, do a fine job, but I think the script and the direction are the weak links here. it's not the happy go lucky fluff story i was expecting. they belabor certain things, and drag them on too long, at least in the first hour: -- at breakfast, a scene about asthma goes on way too long; gets annoying, and they keep making fun of the one who has it.-- on the bus, a woman complains about the bus driver over and over and over and...-- at the store where Sam (Cooper) works, one worker thinks another co-worker is about to commit suicide.-- Lu laughs as she hears all of Sam's troubles. I think it's out of exhasperation with Sam's self-sacrificing, but she continues laughing even when the Butlers talk about a car accident, and the ensue-ing lawsuit, all of which which comes back on the Claytons. It was odd that she kept on laughing so hard and so long, as someone has already pointed out in the comment section. if it was supposed to be a hysterical laugh, it wasn't put across very well.This wasn't the best work for either Sheridan or Cooper. I loved Sheridan in "Man Who Came to Dinner", and ANY of Cooper's westerns beat this. It's entertaining, and there ARE some clever lines. Watch for Bill Frawley as the bartender, wearing a wig! There's also a weird edit about 90 minutes in. At one moment, Sam is walking down the street, and suddenly we see him nursing a bump on his head, being helped by someone. From the cast list on IMDb, we can see all the deleted scenes, so clearly things had been cut. Directed by Leo McCarey, who directed everything from the Marx Brothers to An Affair to Remember.

This film was a box office flop when it debuted in 1948 and part of the reason was that the chemistry between Ann Sheridan and Gary Cooper was just not there.This picture was the typical holiday feel good movie in the attempt of "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," (1936) or "Miracle on 34th Street." (1947). The theme of the film is the basic good qualities of people and how you have to take a chance on them. Of course, the Gary Cooper character goes overboard as the do-good person; he sacrifices almost everything for good quality people at the expense of his own family.Ann Sheridan is impressive here going between her laughter at her do-good husband and anger when things don't go their way. The end of the film reminded me somewhat of the classic- "It's A Wonderful Life," (1946) where everyone rallies around our protagonist at a time when things couldn't appear to be bleaker. This film is basically the fulfillment of the American dream by doing good to your neighbor. It fails to reach its height because after a while you get tired of Cooper's constant good deeds and his drunken scene near the end gives us a necessary break from all this and shows the human frailty.

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.