to be taken as a proper example at all but is really something of a lampoon—a spoof of a popular movie type—then you'll certainly get more pleasure out of the antics than if you don't. Crowther praised Cooper's performance as a spoof of "every do-gooder that he has played since Mr. Deeds, plus a couple of memorable do-gooders that Jimmy Stewart has played". He also lauded Sheridan's performance for cueing the reader to the fact the film should not be taken seriously, writing: "As a matter of fact, it is the lovely and willful sarcasm in her approach—the non-Pollyannaism—that keys the whole purpose of the film". He called McCarey's staging of the interactions between the main character and his wife, and with others, "bright, explosive—and absurd". A 1950 review by the Narandera Argus and Riverina Advertiser of New South Wales also praised the film as "smashing in its comic effect", "heartwarming and human". The Santa Cruz Sentinel gave the picture a weak nod, writing: "The film has several good laughs, and no doubt some people will find it amusing and even philosophical. Others will find it episodic, confused and even embarrassing". Variety blamed Cooper's performance for slowing the film's pacing, due to his "languidness and too obviously premeditated performance in a pic that in itself is unusually long". Contemporary reviews also noted the miscasting of Sheridan, who typically played "sassy" characters but in this film was cast as a "bland" housewife. Variety felt the stylishly-outfitted Sheridan looked more at home "in a Christian Dior salon" than in the kitchen cooking eggs. In 1982, The RKO Story criticized McCarey's coaching of the actors for "bungling" the potential satirical comedy, resulting in Cooper giving "one of the most dopey, insipid performances of his long career". Writing in 2001, Cooper biographer Jeffrey Meyers calls Good Sam "one of Cooper's worst [films]"; a "labored, repetitive, one-joke movie". Comparing it to Cooper's "naïve and idealistic" performance in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Meyers describes Cooper's acting in this film as "merely goofy". Meyers quotes a Cue magazine review which chided Cooper for overacting, writing: "Mr. Cooper is now a grown man and his boyish bashfulness, sheepish grins, trembling lip and fluttering eyelids are actors' tricks he can surely do without"; Meyers blamed Cooper's maneuvers on the actor's efforts to "compensate for a poor script". Among 21st-century critics. Leonard Maltin calls the film "an almost complete