Heaven Can Wait

Ernst Lubitsch was a man destined to take the play in which this film is based to the screen. The results are amazing. This 1943 movie continues to charm audiences after all these years. Credit must go to the great Lubitsch who shows his light touch on this delightful comedy.

Since the film is based on the play "Birthday", by Leslie Bush-Fedeke, the main idea behind the action is to present us Henry Van Cleve as he ages. The film opens as Henry is descending a long flight of stairs. He is an old man now. Henry meets an elegant man at the desk who will decide whether he will go down to hell, or to heaven. The story then goes back in flashbacks to show us what this Henry was really like while he lived.

Henry Van Cleve is part of a wealthy family from New York. When the film opens Henry is celebrating his 10th birthday. This involves being introduced to a French governess who will transform the boy for life. Then we see Henry as he is going to celebrate his 25th birthday. This is a most important date for him because he meets and falls in love with the lovely Martha Strabel, a beauty from Kansas, that is his idiotic cousin's fiancée. Needless to say, the handsome Henry falls in love with her and they elope.

Life has a way to get in the way of Henry as we see how he is handed tragedy when he loses his lovely Martha when she becomes sick. Ultimately, Henry himself, a mere mortal, dies after a long life that has been spent alone, living dedicated to his own son.

"Heaven can Wait" is a lovely film. Much credit has to go to its stars, Don Ameche and Gene Tierney, who make an excellent couple. They were at the top of their careers and guided by Mr. Lubitsch, their romance, while sweet, it's not sugary. Ms. Tierney's beauty adorns this film and Mr. Ameche is seen at his suavest self.

The supporting cast was a director's dream come true: Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main, Eugene Palette, Spring Byington, Louis Calhern, Laird Cregar, among others, give the film the elegance that Mr. Lubitsch used so well to enhance the movie.

A classic that will live forever!

A tale of a charming rogue directed by Ernst Lubitsch--but the great expectations aroused by that description are let down by casting (the un-roguish Don Ameche) and the demands of the period. In the Twenties and Thirties, Lubitsch directed some of the most exquisitely naughty movies ever made, full of Continental charm, in which the women are as clever and independent as the men. But this kind of material didn't suit the setting here, of Victorian America, or the stricter morals necessary after the adoption of the Production Code in 1934. Much of the wit is blunted, and its intrinsic cruelty is softened or denied. Gene Tierney winks so often at her husband's adultery it's a wonder she isn't cross-eyed. While earlier audiences could laugh and take this film at its own valuation, it is now difficult not to squirm at her humiliation--or wonder if her finding him endearing isn't a cover-up for her real motivation, his wealth and social position.

Another reviewer thinks the movie might have been improved by showing the husband's affairs rather than just alluding to them--they are very deliberately not shown because they would add an unwelcome note of reality. How sympathetic would the audience be after seeing Ameche kissing and fondling another woman, assuring her that he loves her, and that he doesn't care for his wife?

Despite all this, and despite the rather leaden pace, I emphatically recommend this movie. While it does not compare well with Lubitsch's earlier films, it is way above nearly every movie of today. There are plenty of neat jokes, in the art direction as well as the script, a deliciously sour performance from Charles Coburn as the story's one outspoken cynic, and an enchanting one from Signe Hasso as the ooh-la-la French maid. Pretending deep sympathy with the young man of the house, resentful at being kept in knickerbockers when he has the soul of an adult, she coos, with an irony he does not hear, "I understand--your soul is bigger than your pants." Which, in a way, sums up the movie.

Utterly perfect Fox picture with handsome Don Ameche and stunningly beautiful Gene Tierney. It also stars the wonderfully hilarious Charles Coburn as Ameche's grandfather.

A well written, well acted and well directed film that is unjustly underrated and should be rediscovered. The entire film is shot in gorgeous full Technicolor and handled by director Ernst Lubitsch capable hands.

It details the story of a man, played by Ameche, who thinks that he deserves to go to hell after he dies. He then proceeds to recount his life story to the devil (Laird Creger). A true delight that is not to be missed.

"Heaven Can Wait" lies among Ernst Lubitsch's best movies, and that's largely enough to ensure that it is a masterpiece.

It is the exquisite story of the women-devoted life of a never-repenting Casanova, from childhood through old age, death, and even after-death. We find Lubitsch's trade-mark elegant sense of humor, perfect timing, sharp intelligence. There is also a rather deep, though cheerful, representation of common, typical sides (faults, to say better) of a male character: shallow sentiments, selfish approach to a woman's true love, childish refuse to accept years passing.

The stars Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Charles Coburn make a superb work. However, a main credit of the film is the cast of incredibly nice actors (willingly?) gathered by the director. The Devil himself (Laird Cregar) is likeable, with his perfect manners and friendly approach! We are unable to dislike even those shrewish old rich women, who pop out along the movie. It's impossible to give the deserved credit to all those wonderfully talented supporting actors. Let me mention the delightful butler Jasper (Clarence Muse), with his role of ambassador between Mr. and Mrs. Strabel.

To be personal, I'm very fond of "Heaven Can Wait", since it was my first encounter with Gene Tierney. When she appeared on the screen I couldn't believe my eyes: "Who, who, who is this girl? I'm dreaming or what? Does this girl actually exist?" Honestly, I felt dizzy for the remainder of the movie.

Only after repeated views of "Heaven Can Wait" I was able to distract my eyes from Gene, and fully appreciate the great merits of this magnificent, highly-recommended Lubitsch's masterpiece.

This is the last of a series of hit comedies Ernst Lubitsch made in the years just before and during World War II. Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), That Uncertain Feeling (1941), To Be or Not To Be (1942), and this one, Heaven Can Wait (1943), make up the core of a very successful body of work for one of Hollywood's finest directors.

If there is one phrase to characterize the "Lubitsch touch," then I would say "light romantic comedies," the kind made popular by Hollywood in the late years of the Depression. His films didn't have the subtle commentary on American life that Capra's did, but were more along the lines of old fashioned entertainment.

Heaven Can Wait is based on a play written by a Hungarian (all of Lubitsch's films during this period were written by European emigrés like himself, and as such have a more cosmopolitan flair than most American films). It follows the life of a Victorian playboy, Henry Van Cleve, of Fifth Avenue, New York, and is told in retrospective by the hero as he explains his life to His Excellency, the Devil.

Don Ameche is the main character and delivers a fine performance as the boyish rogue who falls in love with a beautiful girl from Kansas City, played by Gene Tierney. The film covers Van Cleve's life from childhood through a reckless adolescence up through his happy marriage and the years after his wife dies. It's a sentimental journey told with much levity.

The film has a number of terrific character actors in it, the most notable performance coming from Charles Coburn, who plays the grandfather everyone wishes they had - quick witted, caring, and always supportive of his grandson. Marjorie Main, Eugene Palette (the froggy-voice friar in Mark of Zorro), Spring Byington, and Louis Calhern make up the rest of the supporting cast.

While I enjoyed this film, it's not as well-crafted as some of his earlier work. Perhaps the "Lubitsch touch" had worn itself out, and perhaps the changing times had caught up to him. Considering that the war was going on at the time, the film does seem a bit out of place. Perhaps that accounts for the lack of depth in some of the performances.

I rarely bother to look up who the art director was in a film, but the visuals in this one were so striking, I had to know who was responsible. James Basevi was the art director (basically, the interior scenery) and was much used by Hollywood's leading directors of the time - Hitchcock and John Ford among them. The lobby of the waiting room for Hell was especially appealing in a 40's art deco way.

This was the final hit film Ernst Lubitsch ever produced. He made a few more films in the following years, inconsequential stuff compared to his earlier work, then passed away in 1947, during a period when Hollywood was turning to the stark reality of film noir.

By contemporary standards, this film is a bit light, but it's funny and touching in its sentimentality, and it's an enjoyable bit of entertainment from a bygone era.