Good Sam and The Birth of Sarcasm

I'm watching Good Sam — Gary Cooper plays man who goes out of his way to do right by everyone who crosses his path, while, inevitably, his family pays the price for his good nature. Reviews refer to this an "almost complete misfire" and a "lifeless comedy" (I couldn't disagree more), and I wonder if that's mostly because the film is a bit dark and it's comedy unusually mean-spirited for a 1948 film (or my notion of a 1948 film, anyway). It's almost a black comedy.