I have some vague recollections of seeing Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait as a kid, but I never quite saw much more than half of it. I am actually a little surprised to learn, now that I have seen the whole thing, that it was actually up for nine Oscars, including all the big acting categories and director, but only really won for Best Art Direction. That surprises me a bit, in part because comedies so rarely win that many Oscars, but I can’t even recall too many instances from my lifetime when a comedy has even gotten that many outright nominations. Regardless, it happened for Heaven Can Wait, so it must have been doing something right.
And it’s also a remake of a movie from the 40s, so that may be a little more surprising.
Los Angeles Rams quarterback Joe Pendleton (Beatty) may not be the starter just yet, but he loves the game and this year may be the year for him. Then while out on a bike ride, he goes through a tunnel while two large vehicles are coming through from the other side with one attempting to pass the other. Joe finds himself in the afterlife, the “waiting room” as it is, with his Escort (Buck Henry, who co-directed with Beatty) trying to get Joe on the jet to whatever comes next, but Joe doesn’t seem to understand or believe that he’s dead. The Escort asks his supervisor Mr. Jordan (James Mason) for help, and it turns out the Escort screwed up and took Joe’s soul before Joe had died. He was supposed to go on and live another 50 years or so. It doesn’t help that Joe’s body has already been cremated. Fortunately, Mr. Jordan and the Escort can help Joe out by putting his soul into a new body, one where the person has died but not been discovered yet. Joe really wants to win the Superbowl, so he wants an athlete that he can use to get his old job back. He somehow ends up in the body of recently deceased millionaire Leo Farnsworth. For the time being, Joe will see his own face in the mirror and hear his own voice, and he can still talk to Mr. Jordan and the Escrot if he needs to, but everyone else will just see Leo Farnsworth perhaps talking to thin air.
Small problem: Farnsworth had been murdered by his wife Julia (Dyan Cannon) and her lover/his secretary Tony Abbott (Charles Grodin). They aren’t exactly pleased to see him, you know, breathing. But the only reason Joe agreed to Farnsworth’s body was because he was somewhat smitten with schoolteacher Betty Logan (Julie Christie) who flew all the way from England to try and stop a toxic bottle-making plant Farnsworth’s company was going to build in her home village. It seems Joe has goals beyond winning the Superbowl now. Too bad whenever he tries to tell people the truth, they think he’s nuts…
So, yeah, this was one funny movie. It helps that accomplished comedians like Buck Henry (as co-director) and Elaine May (as co-writer) are assisting Beatty with the work. But this is a movie where a simple man wants to do better because he can, even if he doesn’t understand the world of high finance that he suddenly finds himself a part of. Joe is a single-minded man in many instances. One of the funnier reoccurring bits in the movie is how, while being well aware what Julia and Tony have done, he doesn’t seem to much care. Sure, they are probably going to try and murder him again, but he just wants to win over Betty and win the Superbowl. As such, while he’s just all that concerned that they’re even a couple, the two of them are freaking out because what kind of man ignores the people that almost killed him? Surely he must want to get back at them somehow, right? Instead, Joe goes about his business, and since it looks like Farnsworth was a pretty eccentric guy before, his new behavior, even if it’s stranger, doesn’t seem to be bothering people enough to, say, have him committed to an asylum or something.
It helps that Mason is onboard as Mr. Jordan. Beatty apparently lobbied Cary Grant to come out of retirement for the role, and Grant ultimately declined, but Mason does have a lot of paternal warmth as the mysterious Mr. Jordan, someone who is there to help, but he has rules of his own he has to follow, all while insisting that’s a plan of some kind done by, well, God. If there was someone like Mr. Jordan on the other side to help us get settled, that seems like it could be a welcoming sight, and if some angels want to help a man come back to life to win a football game, well, why not?
Grade: B+
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