GOOD SAM (1948)

After two gargantuan hits with GOING MY WAY/’44 and THE BELLS OF ST. MARY’S/’45, writer/director/producer Leo McCarey waited three years before returning to the screen only to discover he was through.  Just fifty-two at the time, he’d struggle to make four more films (two remakes; a Commie-Conspiracy embarrassment; a close-call social comedy) before calling it quits in ‘62.*  There’s something clueless in this discomforting moral parable about Gary Cooper’s pathological neighborly giving.  Unable to say no to anyone needing a helping hand, he discovers no good deed goes unpunished.  As written by McCarey, he’s more slow-witted sap than Good Samaritan, always putting wife Ann Sheridan & kids second to strangers in need.  An idea not without comic potential, but McCarey’s comic timing (always deliberate) is now a slow crawl of willful stupidity meant to be hilarious.  Perhaps with a slow-boil comedian like Edgar Kennedy (stellar for McCarey in DUCK SOUP/’33), but deadly inside this Father Knows Best setup.  About two-thirds of the way along, McCarey shows his hand and you can see he’s trying to ‘fix’ his friend Frank Capra’s IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, now a classic, but originally something of a disappointment two years before this.  And with McCarey’s collapsing technique (even at its best, something of an instinctual mystery), there's no solid craft to fall back on when the physical & relationship gags misfire.  At least, Coop looks better than he had recently, and Sheridan had a real gift for this kind of thing (see GEORGE WASHINGTON SLEPT HERE/’42).  But another fizzle when they both needed a career boost.  (Sheridan got her reprieve in I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE/’49; Coop's delayed but spectacular in HIGH NOON/’52.)  And McCarey still showing a tin ear in choosing young secondary couples, here Joan Lorring & one-shot actor Dick Ross, both perplexingly bad.  One nice touch, a pregnant young woman big enough to actually be carrying a baby.  Unheard of at the time and the only forward looking thing in the movie.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *A sharp decline paralleling two equally prominent right-leaning Hollywood Catholics more or less the same age, Frank Borzage & Frank Capra.  There’s a book in this.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Before The Fall: usually rated lower than GOING MY WAY, McCarey preferred the sequel.  He’s right.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/11/bells-of-st-marys-1945.html  After The Fall: https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/12/my-son-john.html