Not So Good

I just saw Good Sam, a Leo McCarey comedy from 1948.  I think I saw it years ago, but I'm not sure.  Must not have made much of an impression.  Unlike many McCarey films, this one has no reputation.  He made it coming off Going My Way and The Bells Of St. Mary's, two gigantic hits, and Good Sam was a big disappointment.

It stars Gary Cooper as a man who's always helping others, so much that his wife, played by Ann Sheridan, is driven to distraction. It's not a bad premise, actually--can someone live like a saint and get away with it?  But the pace is so lesiurely (it's 114 minutes and the original cut was even longer) and the story so sentimental that it doesn't play.  Cooper had done naive and distracted before, but there's not enough here--his character seems so passive that he barely exists. And that doesn't help when it comes to chemistry with the sly Sheridan. You wonder how they ever got together.

McCarey had never minded a deliberate pace.  He used pauses famously well in his days with Laurel and Hardy, and his hits in the 30s like Ruggles Of Red Gap, The Awful Truth and Love Affair allowed his actors to take time with scenes, often relying on their reactions for his best effects.  But by the 40s, he slowed down even more, and, in Going My Way, was willing to get sappier than was good for him.  He also tried to deal with social issues, which make his films play even less well today.

McCarey would only make a handful of films in his last decade and a half directing.  They're a varied bunch, but he'd never again regain the touch he'd had in the 30s.