disinterested_spectator In the old days, they produced a lot of movies that made light of a man's infidelity, such as "The Women" (1939), "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), and, of course, "Heaven Can Wait." Perhaps it was because a divorce was harder to get in those days, or maybe it was that women had a much harder time supporting themselves when they did get a divorce. But the moral of such stories seems to be that women should forgive their philandering husband because their indiscretions are not serious, that their husbands really loved them deep down, and that such men are really just like cute, little, mischievous boys. Such movies helped women accept the fact that they were stuck in a loveless marriage, and they undoubtedly assuaged any feelings of guilt men might have for having been unfaithful. Now that divorces are easier to get, and women are better able to support themselves, we don't see such movies any more. Instead, a modern movie is more likely to treat adultery as being as painful and insulting as it really is.They may have cast creepy Laird Cregar in the role of the Devil, nattily attired, with the appropriate beard and mustache neatly trimmed, so as to make him look the part, but he is so kind and sympathetic that we can only wish most people were as considerate and caring as he is. The idea of giving us a Devil who is not really evil is to underscore the idea that adultery (on the part of a man, of course) is not really a sin. We don't believe that Henry Van Cleve should burn for eternity in the fires of Hell, but we don't believe he deserves a forgiving wife like Martha either.

tieman64 Based on a play by Leslie Bush-Fekete, Ernst Lubitsch's "Heaven Can Wait" tells the tale of Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche), a predatory playboy who has a series of adulterous affairs."Heaven" opens in hell, where a mustachioed Satan is confronted by a now deceased Henry. Henry, who states that he wishes to avoid his wife in heaven, begs the Master of Darkness to "keep him downstairs", trapped in hell and so away from his wife's judgemental gaze. To convince the devil, Henry proceeds to recount his own life-story (told to us via flashback), hoping that an account of his collective sins will convince all and sundry that he is in fact unsuitable for heaven. The film is typically read as a "touching" and "funny" portrait of marriage and its difficulties, but perhaps also has another aspect: the smooth-talking Henry is conning Satan, presenting a ridiculously biased tale in order to excuse his own chauvinism.Stiff and slow, and with an unnecessary framing device, "Heaven" can't compete with Lubitsch's better films ("The Shop Around The Corner", "Trouble in Paradise", "To Be Or Not To Be" etc). It was Lubitsch's most profitable picture. Some regard it as a masterpiece.5/10 - See "The Shop Around The Corner".

blanche-2 Strangely, the title of this film was used in 1978 to remake another movie, "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" which probably sounded old-fashioned to the filmmakers."Heaven Can Wait" is a 20th Century Fox production directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch and starring Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Charles Coburn, Laird Cregar, Spring Byington, Marjorie Main, Eugene Palette, and Louis Calhern. Ameche plays Henry van Cleve, who at the start of the film is an old man who has just died. Figuring he's going straight to hell, he enters and meets "His Excellency" (Laird Cregar) who looks a bit like Satan. His Excellency wants to hear Henry's story and why he thinks he belongs in a hot atmosphere. The story is then told in flashback, going back to Henry's childhood up until the time he died.A playboy, Henry at the age of 25 fell madly in love with his cousin Albert's fiancée, Martha (Gene Tierney) and marries her. Henry adores her but he still has an eye for the ladies. At one point, Martha leaves him and returns to her family in Kansas. Henry's grandfather (Coburn) loves Henry, but he realizes that Martha is the best thing that ever happened to him. He insists that Henry go after her and make things right.Filmed in vivid color, this has the Lubitsch stamp of Lubitsch's finesse and charm all over it. It's not uproariously funny, rather, it's a pleasant comedy with an underlying warmth and sweetness.The performances are wonderful. Don Ameche is a darling Henry, a vain man who worries about how old he looks as he ages and wonders if he's getting a paunch but who is nevertheless lovable because of his adoration for Martha and the love he has for his family. He's delightfully out of it, which somehow makes him all the more appealing. Gene Tierney looks like a goddess and gives a lovely performance as the patient Martha. As Henry's outspoken grandfather, Charles Coburn gives one of his best performances.The film is well cast, with Spring Byington and Louis Calhern as Henry's confused parents, Marjorie Main and Eugene Palette as Martha's disapproving parents, Signe Hasso as a French maid who introduces Henry to some of the wilder parts of life when he's a teenager, and finally Laird Cregar as His Excellency. Here he seems so much like Raymond Burr. Had he lived past the age of 31, he would have had a magnificent career. Unfortunately, his heart couldn't withstand the crash diet he went on, and he died the year after this film's release.Lubitsch films are like champagne - they're bubbly and sublime. This is one of his best.

secondtake Heaven Can Wait (1943)Brilliantly rich in color, speeding through decades of a man's life, and tumbling with jokes and situations time and again, this movie has style and sophistication written all over it. On the one hand it's chipper and funny and clever, on the other it's a hair stuff and forced, or what director Ernest Lubitch would call stylized and refined. The entire story is a flashback of a man named Henry sitting in purgatory looking at the underestimated Laird Creger. I think Henry expects to go to hell next, and so there's an impression that we'll see just how bad he's been in life (and you wish he had been more bad, actually). If you have this feeling of tolerance as you laugh and the movie speeds through its opening scenes, hang on! It rises up several notches and truly takes off when the two main leads arrive: Don Ameche who is rather good as the center of the tale and Gene Tierney who is totally wonderful as Martha, the woman of increasing interest. Tierney plays roles that combine reserve and style with a kind of undercurrent of mischief very well. She has to keep a slightly false style to fit the Lubitch sense of a "comedy of manners," but she otherwise is less of a caricature than the rest of the cast, her and Henry.Speaking of caricatures, boy is this movie loaded up. Martha's parents are an extraordinary high volume pair, Marjorie Main and Eugene Palette (they could make an entire movie of their own, which you'll appreciate once the Kansas scene is established--there are some moments with the servants that are masterpieces). Henry's grandfather is the always impressively quirky and complex Charles Coburn, who luckily lives through many scenes.The color (true Technicolor) is a character of its own here--the opening scenes of purgatory are like a color version of Mr. Thatcher's famous library in "Citizen Kane," the bedroom of the newly married Martha is a pink and baby blue wonder. Skin tones glow, flowers (of which there are many in this upper crust world) and drapes (all very fancy) pop off the screen, and most of all, that first blue dress that Martha wears is something to wonder at. The photographer, Edward Cronjager, was a staple of great 1930s films, and he got an Oscar nomination for this 1943 film (and D.W. Griffith said it was the finest footage ever filmed). And speaking of "Citizen Kane," there are several echoes here--the photograph that (almost) comes to life, the telling of man's life including his old age, and there's the long long dining room table between Main and Palette--that may or may not be intentional, but it's there, for sure."All my life I've wanted to run away with a woman," says the grandfather. "And it's happening!" But not like you think. Check out this very funny and beautifully filmed bit of escapism, which came out right in the middle of World War II. A welcome relief even to this day. And you know what's amazing about movies like this ("Dinner at Eight" comes to mind, too) is how really moving they eventually become--regular tear jerkers. But I'm a sucker.