Heaven Can Wait – 1943
This was Ernst Lubitsch’s first color film and he really did a fine job. Not only was it good to see a competent example of an early color movie, but it had a cute plot that didn’t take itself too seriously, and a good cast of actors. The main protagonist was played by a young Don Ameche. Opposite him was the beautiful Gene Tierney, with Spring Byington, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main, and Eugene Pallette rounding out the supporting cast.
The film was a farce that doubled as a romantic comedy. The characters were silly and the one-liner jokes were plentiful. The whole thing started out in a way that made it instantly clear that that the humor would not be very intellectual, nor would it be remotely realistic. As soon as the annoying old biddy got sucked down to hell for being “naughty” and showing off her old lady legs, I knew I was in for an enjoyable and light-hearted movie
Ameche played Mr. Henry Van Cleve, a kind old man who arrives in Hell’s reception area, asking to be admitted. The receptionist, His Excellency, played by Laird Cregar, asks Henry why he should be allowed to go to hell, as if it is the hot-spot of the afterlife. “Would you be good enough to mention, for instance, some outstanding crime you’ve committed?” Henry responds, “Crime? Crime? I’m afraid I can’t think of any, but I can safely say my whole life was one continuous misdemeanor.”
What he means is that he believed himself to be a womanizer, which, of course, was not at all true. But this is a farce, so we’ll go with it. Then the main story begins as he tells his life’s story. In fact, Henry leads a fairly blameless life, but dates a lot of different girls when he reaches his young adulthood. He develops a habit of hanging out by stage doors and carousing with actresses, which is scandalous, because everyone knows what kind of women those actresses are.
But when he meets the love of his life, Martha, played by Tierney, his womanizing seems to stop. In fact, he is so crazy about her that he steals her out of her own engagement party and carries her off to elope, much to his cousin the groom’s chagrin. The two marry and spend many happy years together. In the end, she dies of some unknown illness, which the film glosses over in the space of five or six seconds.
Henry, now an old man, returns to his old ways, carousing with younger women and actresses. He dies at the ripe old age of seventy. Hell’s receptionist turns him away for having led too good a life, saying this his wife and beloved grandfather are waiting for him in “the other place.” The end.
The film was cute enough, and even had a few great moments that had me laughing out loud. For example, a quick line delivered from Grandpa Van Cleve, Henry’s Grandfather and mischievous kindred spirit, wonderfully played by Charles Coburn, as he listens to the story of how Henry had been misbehaving. He had apparently dropped a nickel into the cleavage of an aristocratic old lady as he was trying to impress a young woman. Grandpa said something like, “I know Mrs. Alister. We’ll never see that nickel again,” implying either that Mrs. Alister was such a money-grubber that she would never return it to Henry, or that Mrs. Alister’s cleavage was so voluminous that nobody would ever find it. Either way, I was left laughing.
Now, there was one thing about the plot that I was a little unsure of. At one point in the film, after the main couple had been together for ten years, Martha leaves him over suspicions that he had been cheating on her. But when it came to that, it was unclear whether he actually had or not. She had found a receipt for an expensive bracelet and said that she had never received the jewelry. It implies that he had cheated, but the film also went out of its way to show how head-over-heels he was for her. If that was the case, cheating would be out of the question.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Spring Byington playing the part of Henry’s mother, Bertha Van Cleve. She was silly and blithely ridiculous. The fact that her son was not feeling well caused her to go into fits of wild tears as if the boy was dying. As it turned out, he wasn’t even ill. He was just love-struck, as any young man might be. Her boohoos got even worse when she found out he was in love with one of those horrible stage actresses. Byington always does a good job.
The movie was delightful to watch because on top of all the good things I have already mentioned, it didn’t take itself too seriously. There were sad parts but they were not dwelled upon. The light-hearted atmosphere and the happy ending were a great contrast to all the serious dramas of the early 1940s, which was, of course, the WWII era.