HERE COMES MR. JORDAN. (1941) ADAPTED FROM THE PLAY 'HEAVEN CAN WAIT' BY HARRY SEGALL. DIRECTED BY ALEXANDER HALL. STARRING CLAUDE RAINS, ROBERT MONTGOMERY, EVELYN KEYES, JAMES GLEASON AND HALLIWELL HOBBES. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
Aw...! This romantic comedy-fantasy film
from the war years is just so heartwarming and uplifting, it'd put a
smile on the face of a stone statue. Especially if that statue had a
soft spot for wartime comedies that centred around the theme of the
afterlife, as this film does and which was a popular theme for movies
of the time.
The plot concerns an ordinary nice guy
called Joe Pendleton, played by Robert Montgomery. He's not your
obvious romantic lead like Clark Gable or Cary Grant (the latter,
incidentally, was the first choice for the lead role), but he's
solidly-built and honest and loyal and he's got a heart of gold. He's
a boxer with the twin passions of amateur flying and playing the
saxophone. ('Lisa! Quit playing that damn saxomophone...!)
One
thing you should never do, of course, is to combine the two. Flying a
plane while playing your 'saxomophone,' I
mean. One day on his way to an important boxing match, Joe is daft
enough to do just that. Naturally, his plane crashes and, before you
can say 'only a total feckin' eejit would do a stupid
feckin' thing like that,' a
heavenly messenger has whisked him off up to the Pearly Gates.
Luckily
for Joe, his number's not really up yet. He's relieved when he's
informed by Mr. Jordan, the messenger's supervisor and an all-round
big-wheel up in Heaven, that he's actually got another fifty years
left to live. The whole thing's just been a clerical error, in fact.
A bureaucratic snafu. Isn't
that a lovely word, snafu? I
wonder where the bloody hell it comes from and what it means...!
Anyway, Mr.
Jordan's plans to allow Joe to go back down to Earth to re-inhabit
his old body at the crash site are thwarted when they find out that
disaster has struck. Joe's boxing manager, Max Corkle, has (with
somewhat unseemly haste!) had Joe's earthly remains cremated. Quelle horreur, as the French would say.
Poor
Joe no longer has a working body to call his own. He is, as the French would also say, very much sans a body. The
search is on then to find Joe a new body. It won't be brand-new,
however. It'll be pre-owned or even pre-loved, as
I believe second-hand clothes in fancy charity shops are now described, and it'll come with
its own particular set of challenges and even obstacles for Joe to
overcome. Is he up to the task? Is K.O. Murdoch the best darned
prizefighter since the late great Joe Pendleton? You bet your butt he
is.
Claude Rains
is excellent as the smiling Mr. Jordan, whom Joe can see and hear but
no-one else can, which of course makes Joe appear crazy at times to
other Earthlings. Mr. Jordan is so cuddly and unflappable and he
never gets ruffled by anything and his grey hair is incredibly
bouffant. He does a terrific job as the Heavenly Supervisor who's
always there for Joe when Joe needs him most.
Evelyn
Keyes is well-suited to her part as Joe's love interest, Bette, and
her muff is quite simply enormous. And
it's so furry, too. You guys think I'm being smutty again but I swear
I'm not this time. This time...!
In one of her scenes with Joe, she's carrying the biggest and most
luxurious furry muff you ever saw. It's bigger than she is,
for crying out loud. Why women in the olden days needed such
ridiculously huge muffs is beyond me, seriously. Am I being smutty
again? Maybe...!
I was
delighted to see dear old Halliwell Hobbes, an actor who often
portrayed butlers in movies, playing the faithful 'major-domo'
Sisk. He's past his prime and, not unnaturally, he's unable to keep
up with Joe's fitness montage, which is most endearing to watch. He's
such a lovely, cuddly old butler. He can certainly polish my
silver anytime. If I had any to
polish. Which I don't. Not since the Great Silver Fire of '03,
anyway.
The
interiors of the Farnsworth house are utterly beautiful and I spent
much of this Oscar-winning and multi-Oscar-nominated film just ogling
them and mourning the fact that only posh rich people have libraries
and studies in their houses anymore. Well, I assume they
do. I'm
only going by what I've seen on telly, like.
Not too
many rich poshos in real life invite me round to their gaffs for a nosy, which is
a crying shame in my humble opinion. It's their loss,
anyway, not to have me pawing their precious collectibles and
rummaging through their keepables. All they had to do was invite me.
I would've gone! In a
flash I would've gone.
I'd
hate to leave you movie buffs without some good news to keep you
going till our next rendezvous, so
here it is. HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, later
re-made with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie as HEAVEN CAN
WAIT (1978) and in 2001 with
Chris Rock as DOWN TO EARTH, is
out on Blu-Ray this June, complete with some rather delicious extra
features for you to peruse at your leisure.
This
delightful cinematic treat comes courtesy of the good people at THE
CRITERION COLLECTION and SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT. They're
so kind and thoughtful and so good to us, and what have we
ever done for them, the poor
neglected lambs!
The
least we can do is to buy their Blu-Ray for ourselves and all our
friends and families and their friends
and families as well, not forgetting our neighbours and maybe even
the man who came to fix the piano that time and his wife and seven adult step-children. Christmas is
just around the corner, after all, and there's nothing so
satisfactory as beating the rush.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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