Where Will Henry Spend Eternity?

See you on the other side…

Ernst Lubitsch was famous for what film people call “The Lubitsch Touch,” that rather nebulous quality that makes a Lubitsch film special. No one can agree on what the Lubitsch Touch is and no one seems to really want to, but that’s OK because it’s Ernst Lubistch and it’s fun. One great example of this is 1943’s Heaven Can Wait. Based on a Laslo Bus-Feketes play, it’s not Lubitsch’s best film, but it’s not That Uncertain Feeling, either. Its title is also a little confusing, but we’ll get to that.

The movie opens to an expansive Art Deco scene with a dapper gentleman, Henry Van Cleeve (Don Ameche) descending the stairs. Believe it or not, these are supposed to be the Gates of Hell and Henry is here to see a red-faced, cutaway-clad fellow we take to be Satan, or as they refer to him, His Excellency (Laird Cregar). Henry thinks he’s been too much of a lothario to get into heaven.

As if to illustrate his point, Mrs. Edna Craig (Florence Bates), a woman who Henry once met at the beach storms in expecting to talk to His Excellency and presumably expedite judgement. Old Scratch obliges, but not in the way Mrs. Craig hopes: While she’s pulling up her skirt to remind Henry of their time at the beach, His Excellency opens a trap door and sends Mrs. Craig to eternal torment or whatever hell looks like in Lubitsch World.

Henry and His Excellency settle down to Henry’s story, and he considers it easiest to mark time by the number of women he’s met. Well, he focuses mostly on one woman, Martha Strabel (Gene Tierney), but we also get to see Henry as a boy getting doted on by his mother, Bertha (Spring Byington), making faces at his nurse while out on the streets of New York, and when he gets older, getting drunk with the French maid. He’s always been a charming fellow, though, finding ways to be around girls he likes.

Things are a little awkward at first with Martha, whose family are just in from Kansas. Henry sees Martha on the street and is enchanted, but Henry’s fastidious cousin, Albert (Allyn Joslyn) is already engaged to her. Long story short, Martha is smitten with Henry and the two run off to elope.

Martha, unfortunately, tires of Henry’s philandering, and after a while she runs back to her family in Kansas. Henry is not to be deterred, and he and Grandpa (Charles Coburn) go to Kansas to get her back. After that, things are fairly blissful, despite the fact that Henry still has a wandering eye.

There’s also still a bit of awkwardness, of course. One night Henry and Martha go to a Ziegfeld show and Henry spies a pretty girl, Peggy Nash (Helene Reynolds) coming down the stairs. Henry is smitten enough to go to her apartment, but he’s extremely chagrined to find out his son, Jack (Tod Andrews) has already been there.

While Henry might think he’s a wild, dashing fellow, which he is, he does grow old gracefully. His family, including Martha, pass on, and he’s alone in his family house with Jack and his wife. Where will he spend eternity? I won’t spoil it, but funnily enough, one of his nurses looks like Peggy Nash.

Heaven Can Wait is a pretty story, though a bit murky theologically, but then again, it’s Just A Story. It’s full of typical sly Lubitsch humor, and even though it’s a period film released at the height of the Second World War, it still manages to insert a pointed reference to the war. “Everything’s going to hell these days,” His Excellency intones.

It might have been deliberate given the time. Unlike other Lubitsch films, though, Heaven Can Wait seems a little sedate, maybe because so many people were worrying about their loved ones overseas and wondering when or if they would ever be home again. Death was uncomfortably close and disquieting. Then again, Henry is such a sympathetic character that it may have given people hope.

In fact, it seemed to, as the film was a huge hit, bringing in $7.1 million in 1943 dollars at the box office and getting mostly glowing reviews. Even the finicky Bosley Crowther said, “Here is a nostalgic nosegay in which the hero is quite a wolf, indeed. And here is a comedy of manners, edged with satire, in the slickest Lubitsch style,” although he also admitted Don Ameche and Gene Tierney were a little flat in their roles and the film dragged in spots.

Film Bulletin summed up Heaven Can Wait thusly: “The Lubitsch touch is very much in evidence in this gay and gossamer-like comedy that will delight sophisticated and first-run audiences far more than it will entertain action-minded or small town patrons.”

There was also plenty of buzz around Gene Tierney, who was a rising star at the time. Ironically, Gene’s character being from Kansas was true to life in a way, because her husband at the time, Oleg Cassini, was a private stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, and Gene went to visit him whenever she could.

Now, what’s so confusing about this movie? Well, in 1978 a Warren Beatty film called Heaven Can Wait hit theaters, but it was a remake of the 1941 Robert Montgomery vehicle, Here Comes Mr. Jordan.

Wait, what?

Turns out, Heaven Can Wait was the working title of Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Was Lubitsch aware of this while crafting his film, the working title of which, by the way, was Birthday, after its source material? It might be a coincidence and the two films having no connection whatsoever. It might be Lubitsch seeing an unused title lying around and deciding to use it. Or maybe it’s another example of “The Lubitsch Touch,” which means the answer is nebulous and everyone has their own ideas.

In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. Heaven Can Wait is a nice example of low-key Lubitsch and an interesting story laced with bits of unexpected fun.

For more of the Haunting Blogathon, please see the Classic Movie Blog Association. Thanks for hosting this, everyone–it was fun! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you on’t  Monday for a very special announcement…

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Heaven Is Waiting is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon. It can also be streamed on YouTube.

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