Even though this film starring Gary Cooper and Ann Sheridan does not have a New York setting, it has become one of our Christmas essentials, so we have to include it in our watchlist. Both Cooper and Sheridan make other appearances on our list: Sheridan in The Man Who Came to Dinner and Cooper in the much more substantial Meet John Doe directed by Frank Capra. Good Sam seems like a weak version of Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life with the story of a good man, whose life seems to fall apart on Christmas Eve. Unlike Wonderful Life, Good Sam doesn’t feature a “dark night of the soul” leading to suicide, perhaps because Sam has been living his life in joy not frustration, and there’s no angelic Clarence.

PLOT SUMMARY

Sam Clayton (Gary Cooper) can’t help but help people, frustrating his wife (Ann Sheridan), who dreams of finally buying her dream house, even though they can’t seem to save enough money because Sam is always lending it to people in need who never repay him. The final straw comes when Sam lends their savings for a down payment to a neighbor to buy a business, but then the neighbor repays the loan just in time for the Claytons to buy the house. But on Christmas Eve, when they are slated to move in, Sam loses the money in a robbery, and it looks as if the final disaster is inevitable. But Sam’s goodness is rewarded and all ends well.

NEW YORK CONNECTION

There is no New York connection in this film, not even a vague verbal reference.

CHRISTMAS CONNECTION

There are plenty of Christmas connections, as Sam is the general manager of a department store and much of the movie takes place in the holiday shopping period, culminating on Christmas Eve.

CHARACTER ACTORS

Irving Bacon appeared in Bachelor Mother and Meet John Doe. William Frawley makes an appearance in The Lemon Drop Kid and Miracle on 34th Street. ,

ASTAIRE CONNECTION

Louise Beavers and Irving Bacon appeared with Fred Astaire in Holiday Inn.

WHY WE LOVE THIS MOVIE

While a weak movie compared to It’s a Wonderful Life and Meet John Doe, two of the best movies that conclude on Christmas Eve, we enjoy Good Sam because it shows a different side to Gary Cooper. We especially enjoy his extended drunk scene in the tavern and marching with the Salvation Army: I can’t recall any other Cooper movies where he portrays a drunk.

This movie is one of our Christmas watchlist essentials, so even though it isn’t set in New York, we have to include it because the rollicking Kaufman & Hart script and the wonderful character actors. Plus it stars one of our favorite actresses, Bette Davis.

PLOT SUMMARY

Famed radio commentator and critic Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley) is visiting a small town on a lecture tour, when he falls on icy steps at a private home. With his secretary (Bette Davis), Whiteside takes up residence at the home while he recuperates from his injury and turns the household upside down. When Bette Davis falls in love with a local newspaperman and threatens to retire, Whiteside turns his manipulation to her, seeking to foil her romance. But all ends happily on Christmas Day, until …..

NEW YORK CONNECTION

Though not set in New York, there are repeated references to New York, where Whiteside lives.

CHRISTMAS CONNECTION

The movie reaches a crescendo on Christmas Eve and concludes on Christmas Day. There are Christmas trees, choirs singing, and loads of gifts.

CHARACTER ACTORS

Monty Woolley appears in The Bishop’s Wife. Billie Burke is in The Cheaters. Jimmy Durante appears in The Great Rupert. Grant Mitchell is in It Happened on Fifth Avenue. Mary Wickes will be seen in White Christmas.

ASTAIRE CONNECTION

Grant Mitchell appeared on benefit bills with Fred Astaire in the 1920s. Durante appeared with Astaire in benefits in the early 1930s.

WHY WE LOVE THIS MOVIE

It’s just plain, literate fun.

Click the image above to see my compilation of “Happy New Year” greetings from nine different classic films on YouTube. They aren’t just holiday films (two are better known as classic gangster films), but a New Year’s Eve is a pivotal or climactic scene in each picture.

First is Little Caesar (1931), one of the earliest gangster films with a lengthy tracking shot into a New Year’s Eve party.

Next is It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947), a more traditional and upbeat holiday film, with Victor Moore wishing everyone a Happy New Year as the clock strikes midnight.

Then another classic gangster film, The Roaring Twenties (1939) with Humphrey Bogart wishing Jimmy Cagney a sarcastic holiday greeting in the film’s climactic scene.

And So They Were Married (1936) features a happy drunk and an incarcerated Melvyn Douglas saying Happy New Year.

Holiday Inn (1942) has both stars, Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, saying Happy New Year in quite different fashions.

After the Thin Man (1936) has the great William Powell planting a long kiss on a surprised fellow reveler.

In Bachelor Mother (1939), Ginger Rogers and David Niven exchange a silent “Happy New Year” followed by an extended kiss in the middle of Times Square.

We’re in New York again for The Apartment (1960) with Fred MacMurray and Shirley MacLaine back in their usual booth at the Chinese restaurant just before the film’s closing scene (my favorite of all New Year’s Eve film finales).

Fred MacMurray plays a much more sympathetic character in the last clip — Remember the Night (1940) — and a pivotal kiss with Barbara Stanwyck. NOTE: Due to a copyright claim, YouTube has forced me to remove this clip from my video.

In compiling these clips, I realized how few classic films actually have their climaxes set on New Year’s Eve, compared to the number that close with Christmas Eve scenes. (The Christmas Eve climaxes include, of course, all of the version of A Christmas Carol, two by Frank Capra — It’s a Wonderful Life and Meet John Doe, White Christmas, The Shop Around the Corner, The Bishop’s Wife, and many more. More frequently New Year’s Eve is a time when the film plot pivots.

I count seven classics that have pivotal scenes set on December 31. In Holiday Inn Fred Astaire arrives drunk at the inn and first dances with his new partner, the plot twist that propels the rest of the picture. Some of the pivots are murders, but more frequently they are extended kisses that lead to recognitions of love. Little Caesar has a pivotal murder at the end of a New Year’s Eve party. Another murder occurs on New Year’s Eve in After the Thin Man. The pivotal kisses start in Holiday with Katharine Hepburn realizing she loves Cary Grant but allowing only a cheek kiss. Remember the Night has an extended kiss that leads Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck to realize they are in love. Bachelor Mother has a similar recognition kiss between Ginger Rogers and David Niven.

I count just five climactic New Year’s Day scenes in classic movies (before 1961), but except for And So They Were Married, which ends in a jail scene and Melvyn Douglas and Mary Astor reuniting, and The Roaring Twenties, which ends with the killing of Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Cagney, none of the climaxes includes the words “Happy New Year,” so I didn’t include them in my clip compilation. Holiday Affair ends with Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum finally recognizing their love and coming together silently on the train leaving New York City on New Year’s Eve.

My two favorite extended New Year’s Eve climaxes both feature characters running through the streets of Manhattan after realizing they are in love. Shirley MacLaine runs to Jack Lemmon in The Apartment, and Billy Crystal runs to Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. Crystal and Ryan exchange a final grand kiss and some wonderful dialogue. Interestingly, MacLaine and Lemmon don’t kiss, but the final line (“Shut up and deal”) is in some ways the most endearing final line of all these films.