Good movie but grossly overrated

A lot of fun.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Thankfully, nothing to do with the awful 80's movie with the same name, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. This is one of the finest comedies, criminally overlooked. A young Don Ameche and the beautiful Gene Tierney are both fabulous in the lead roles, in fact, they're one of the finest screen couples in film history. In an overall good cast, Charles Coburn and Eugene Palette, both great (comedy-)actors of their time (sadly, overlooked too), stand out particularly. Like many other Lubitsch-comedies, the clever plot and witty dialogue, are well ahead of its time. Trivia: The screenplay was based on the play 'Birthday' by Leslie Bush- Fekete.

This is a beautiful film. Sentimental, but not maudlin. A lavish production with lush color photography.The story is of a man (Don Ameche) at the (rather tame) gates of Hell, explaining his life to the Devil, who will decide where he belongs. Of course, as lives go, his was not that devilish, but it's an entertaining story of life in a different era.But the real attraction here is the cast, led by the devilishly handsome Don Ameche, and he was just perfect for this role. Suave, sophisticated, and decidedly an actor whose prominence is now somewhat overlooked.The female lead is Gene Tierney, perhaps at her most beautiful, and well cast as Ameche's wife.Charles Coburn is along as the grandfather, and he's a hoot...as usual in those roles where he could be humorous. Marjorie Main and Eugene Palette play Tierney's parents, and are just classic. Spring Byington is along as Ameche's mother. Allyn Joslyn plays a rather obnoxious cousin to Ameche. Louis Calhern plays Ameche's father. The cast is about as perfect for the film as possible.What is there to criticize here? Not much. Perhaps Gene Tierney's hairdo toward the end of the picture. Perhaps the sentimentality level. Or is that simply charming? It's one of the most lovely films of that genre that I've ever seen.

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".

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.