★Heaven Can Wait (1943) DVD★

Director : Ernst Lubitsch                                 

actors : Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn         

Subtitles : English / Korean



【Storyline or Review】

# Nominated for 3 Oscars.

Henry Van Cleve presents himself at the gates of Hell only to find he is closely vetted on his qualifications for entry. Surprised there is any question on his suitability, he recounts his lively life and the women he has known from his mother onwards, but mainly concentrating on his happy but sometimes difficult twenty-five years of marriage to Martha. 

# Heaven Can Wait (1943) User Review

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Don Ameche's Henry has gone to hell. No, this isn't the hell of fire and damnation. Not yet. That will have to wait. He's meeting with the head man (Laird Cregar), who looks like our rendition of Satan, but is suave, cool, and willing to listen. That is until a brief acquaintance's of Ameche's comes into the room unwelcome. With the push of a button, Cregar takes care of this pest (played delightfully by the grand Florence Bates) and Ameche is able to tell his story of why he thinks he's in hell.

Young Henry was fought over by women from the day he was born. His mother (Spring Byington) and paternal grandmother (Clara Blandick) each wanted to smother him with love without the other around, and as he grew up (teenager Dickie Moore), that continued. A French nurse shows him about life while his prim and proper cousin gets more and more prissy, growing up to be Ameche's rival (Allyn Joslyn). Ameche does further damage by walking off (or really running off) with the pretty Gene Tierney (engaged to Joslyn), humorously sired by Marjorie Main and Eugene Palette, playing a wealthy country bumpkin couple who hate each other. All the while, Ameche gains the wisdom of life and his sense of humor from his delightful grandfather (Charles Coburn) who helps him win Tierney back (from Joslyn again!) when their marriage goes sour. As Ameche ages, he finds himself at the beck and call of the next generation, never loosing his attraction for younger members of the opposite sex, and prepares for his entrance into the next world, certain he has made a failure of his life.

The Dante's Inferno feel of this slightly black comedy sets it up with a lot of questions. Henry only ends up in hell because he feels he belongs there, having been told to go there a number of times, and being told by grandpa that if he came to heaven, grandpa would be waiting for him with a baseball bat. Of course, grandpa was just joking, later seen on a spree with Ameche to get his beautiful wife back.

There is a delightful sophisticated look to this Technicolor comedy with everybody dressed to the nines and reciting a lot of humorous dialog. If Coburn hadn't won the Oscar for the same year's "The More The Merrier", he would have been a front-runner for this one, his old codger a forerunner to his delightful "Piggy" from "Gentleman Prefer Blondes". The scene at Main and Palette's country home hysterically shows them badgering the butler, Jasper, to speak for each of them, fighting over Sunday's comics and Main enjoying spoiling one of the weekly serials as she makes sure Palette overhears each thing she tells Jasper. Every detail of this film sparkles. For example, at a family reunion, there is a delightful impromptuness of the family portrait with certain members being photographed in embarrassing poses, and then towards the end, the two different looking nurses who pass by each other offscreen, greet each other, each one of them looking into the hall mirror with different reflections staring back at them.

Ameche is perfectly cast, playing a slightly younger variation of William Powell and enjoying every moment he is on screen. Tierney, not yet the siren of "Laura" or "Leave Her to Heaven", is a vision of breathtaking beauty and seems to be parodying her crimson goddess role. The subject of death is presented gently, and the transition from one world to another filled with such peace, that there is no macabre detailing to the theme, just a simple passing from one world to the next, as if each of these aging characters had simply left town. 

[Heaven Can Wait (1943) DVD Spec]

Language: French / English

Menu: English 

Subtitles: English / Korean

Aspect Ratio: 4:3 Full Screen

Sound: Dolby Digital Mono

Region: All Regions 

Length: 112mins