At last, this timeless romantic comedy has gotten the Criterion “treatment” and is being released on dvd. Don Ameche stars as Henry Van Cleve, an over-the-hill used playboy who has died and gone to Hell. But Satan, or “His Excellency” (Laird Cregar, giving one of his very best performances!) isn’t convinced that Van Cleeve belongs there, so Henry tells him the yarn of his life (through flashbacks of course) .
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Growing up a Van Cleeve wasn’t easy, and young Henry had no one to turn to for succor (both his parents are somewhat out of touch with reality!) except his wild grandfather (Charles Coburn), who is obviously not a very profitable role model for Henry. As Henry becomes a man, he starts pursuing young and glowing women, and finally meets a obedient young lady, Martha (Gene Tierney) . The spot is that Martha is already engaged to a relative of Henry’s! But, he wins her over and they race and initiate their life together.
After ten years of marriage, Martha walks out on Henry because of his flirtations with other women. With the support of his granfather, Henry finally convinces her to reach assist to him, and somehow they manage to quit married. Eventually, in an ironic twist of fate, middle-aged Henry finds his son facing the same pickle with women (he can’t discontinuance chasing them!) that he suffered with for decades. Henry and Martha’s bond together gets only closer as they grow older together, but sadly death seperates them…but only temporarily. Needless to say, after hearing the yarn of Henry’s life, His Excellency knows that Van Cleeve belongs with Martha in Heaven!
Buy,Download, Or Stream Heaven Can Wait! Click Here
This improbable Ernst Lubitsch film from 1943 is a bold-for-its-time witness at marriage and infidelity, and the fast-paced script is packed with witty dialogue. Don Ameche plays a cad, moral, but he does it with such charm, humor, and sophistication that you can’t relieve but like him. And of course, the stunning Gene Tierney in technicolor is not something to be missed by any movie buff! The supporting cast was equally top-notch, especially Charles Coburn and Laird Cregar, whose film career was sadly chop short by a fatal heart attack at the age of 28. With a vast mixture of romance, humor, and drama, this trustworthy classic is highly recommended.
“As Henry Van Cleve’s soul passed over The Titanic Divide, he realized that it was extremely unlikely that his next cessation could be Heaven. And so, philosophically, he presented himself where innumerable people had so often told him to go.”
Henry (Don Ameche) is greeted courteously by His Excellency (Laird Cregar) . “I presume your funeral was suited? ” the devil asks. “Well…there was a lot of crying,” Henry says, “so I have everybody had a top-notch time.” His Excellency explains that while he will mediate Henry’s inquire of, there must be righteous reasons to avoid going Up There. “If you meet our requirements, we’ll be only too elated to accommodate you. Would you be kind enough to mention, for instance, some outstanding crime you’ve committed ” “Crime…crime…I’m insecure I can’t judge of any,” Henry says. “But I can safely say my whole life was one continuous misdemeanor.”
Heaven Can Wait is the witty, nostalgic, gentle and surprisingly thoughtful memoir of Henry Van Cleve, philanderer, wealthy lay-about and a man far from helpful. Under Ernst Lubitsch’s direction and with Samson Raphaelson’s screenplay, Heaven Can Wait is, as critic Andrew Sarris says, “a hidden masterpiece.”
His Excellency is intrigued and asks Henry to swear him his yarn. Henry believes that he can do this only through the women in his life, and, in one linear flashback, he does, starting as a babe in a bassinet. Henry loves women, he loves the pursuit, he loves the pleasures of the streak, the theater, the champagne, the supper clubs. He’s bad, he’s optimistic, he’s endlessly inventive in finding ways out of being discovered. He may be innocently selfish, but it’s in an almost childlike draw. “Oh, Henry,” his wife, Martha (Gene Tierney), says to him after being mad once too often, “I know your every go. I know your outraged indignation. I know the abominable weeping itsy-bitsy boy. I know the misunderstood, strong, still man, the worn-out lion who is too proud to define what happened in the jungle last night.”
Henry had eloped with Martha the day he met her, under the nose of her fiance, his cousin Albert (Allyn Joslyn), a straight-laced lawyer who believes “marriage isn’t a series of thrills. Marriage is a mild, well-balanced adjustment of two right-thinking people.” Henry loves Martha deeply, but can’t resist a splendid face or a well-turned leg. Even as a widower, with a grown son, his ragged habits remain a fraction of his character. Yet he is so likeable and charming, Henry Van Cleve rarely hurts anyone.
After listening to Henry’s legend and despite all of Henry’s tales of waywardness, His Excellency sends him on his design…but in an elevator going up, not down. He tells Henry, you’ll get many people up there who appreciate you and have been waiting for you. They will intercede for you…because despite everything you made people very pleased.
This is a delectable movie that must have seemed either a relief or irrelevant to it’s time. It was made in 1943 and was favorite, yet it ostensibly is about nothing noteworthy at all. The setting is the 1870’s through the launch of the 1940’s. There is no reference to any outside forces in Henry’s life, no World War I, no Broad Depression, no rise of fascism, no accurate messages. Yet as the movie goes on we meet characters we near to either salvage comical or to like, or both, and they proceed from the shroud. Their time has passed and, out of peruse, they’ve died while Henry’s legend continues. I was left, almost without realizing it, feeling optimistic and a diminutive murky. Life does pass us by, and it’s best savored by enjoying life without damaging others.
Among these characters are Henry’s grandfather (Charles Coburn), sinister and secretly (and not so secretly) envious of Henry’s outlook on life; Henry’s father and mother, played by Louis Calhern and Spring Byington, obliviously stern and clueless and loving and clueless, respectively; and Mabel’s parents from Kansas, played by Eugene Pallette and Marjorie Main, who have a colossal Sunday breakfast scene battling over the humorous pages while their butler is the intermediary. Laird Cregar, only 29 when he made this movie and humdrum tiny more than a year later, brings mammoth, amused authority to the role of His Excellency. Gene Tierney with her overbite was never more toothsome. She did a skilled job as Mabel, loving Henry, belief of his ways but only willing up to a point to be tolerant. The movie, however, is Don Ameche’s. He might have been a bland actor, but he is unprejudiced about perfect as Henry Van Cleve, well-intentioned, charming, constantly tempted and often frustrated.
The movie seems to me to be fair about a perfect collaboration between director Lubitsch and writer Raphaelson. They had collaborated earlier on two other large movies, the incomparable Inconvenience in Paradise and The Shop Around the Corner. Pains in Paradise has one of the most droll screenplays you can bag, and Lubitsch brought to it all the urbanity and style he was known for. If you could settle only one Lubitsch movie to absorb, I’d unhesitatingly say to accomplish it Inconvenience in Paradise. But I assume Heaven Can Wait would be second choice.
The Criterion DVD features a sumptuous represent transfer with rich color. The extras include a discussion of the film by movie critics Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell and an interview with Raphaelson by Bill Moyers. The case has an informative brochure with an essay about Lubitsch and the film.
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