Rossellini later took up the thesis -- the impracticality of sainthood in modern times -- for Europa '51, Leo McCarey understands it as a translucent joke and gives it a spacious treatment. Gary Cooper and Ann Sheridan nod intently at the reverend's (Ray Collins) sermon on charity, the camera pans right to reveal their tiny daughter giggling at the crone who's fallen asleep behind them. The trouble with Cooper is that he's got "too much faith in people," the neighbors who borrow the family car return it totaled, the deadpan mechanic (Clinton Sundberg) bringing the bill is invited to the breakfast table and requests an abstruse recipe. The sense of relaxed playing allows for the flowering of such digressions as Ida Moore's sketch of a sly gray pixie and Dick Wessel's beautiful rendition of Edgar Kennedy's monumental slow-burn at the wheel of the bus, all the service of the theme. The protagonist's Franciscan virtue escalates to the point where the suicidal "department-store Magdalene" (Joan Lorring) takes refuge in the couple's bedroom, yet none of his pals is available when he's facing bankruptcy. The wife's meeting with the baffled vicar for advice is oddly anticipatory of Buñuel's Él, though McCarey is far from mocking Cooper's inconvenient generosity. Goodwill here pays off opulently as frequently as it bites Cooper in the ass, it backfires just as often ("You tried to do us a favor, and my husband lost his job because of it," one hausfrau cries), all of it is utterly priceless to the director -- to see Sheridan's uproarious guffaws in the midst of a whirlwind of unemployment and lawsuits is to truly experience the full breadth of human emotion. The sublime final scenes are taken virtually verbatim from Capra en route to Cassavetes, with the McCarey stamp foregrounded: Cooper, soused, is serenaded by William Frawley ("Home, Sweet Home"), escorted back by the Salvation Army ("Hallelujah! I've Been Redeemed"), and finally, gloriously rejoined with Sheridan ("Let Me Call You Sweetheart"). With Edmund Lowe, Louise Beavers, Dick Ross, and Ruth Roman. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce
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