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.
-- 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.