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Date of Release: August 7, 1941
Running Time: 94 minutes
Director: Alexander Hall
Screenplay: Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller
Based on the play Heaven Can Wait by Harry Segall
Cinematography: Joseph Walker
Film Editing: Viola Lawrence
Art Direction: Lionel Banks
Costume Design: Edith Head
Producer: Everett Riskin
Original Music: Frederick Hollander
Assistant Director: William Mull
Make-Up Artist: Robert J. Schiffer
Awards and Nominations:
ACADEMY AWARD WIN - Harry Segall, Best Original Story
ACADEMY AWARD WIN - Sidney Buchman & Seton I. Miller, Best Screenplay
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION - Best Picture
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION - Robert Montgomery, Best Actor
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION - Alexander Hall, Best Director
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION - James Gleason, Best Supporting Actor
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION - Joseph Walker, Best Cinematography (B&W)
Note: Characters used in Down to Earth (1947); remade as Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Robert Montgomery...Joe Pendleton/Bruce Farnsworth/Ralph Murdoch
Evelyn Keyes...Bette Logan
Claude Rains...Mr. Jordan
Rita Johnson...Julia Farnsworth
Edward Everett Horton...Messanger 7013
James Gleason...Max "Pop" Corkle
John Emery...Tony Abbott
Donald MacBride...Inspector Williams
Don Costello...Lefty
Halliwell Hobbes...Sisk, the butler
Benny Rubin...Bugsy, the handler
Warren Ashe...Charlie (uncredited)
Lloyd Bridges...Sloan, the pilot (uncredited)
Eddie Bruce...Reporter (uncredited)
Ken Christy...Chuck, the plainclothesman (uncredited)
Chester Conklin...Newsboy (uncredited)
Heinie Conklin...Reporter (uncredited)
Joe Conti...Newsboy (uncredited)
Maurice Costello...Ringsider at fight (uncredited)
Joseph Crehan...Doctor (uncredited)
Mary Currier...Secretary (uncredited)
Billy Dawson...Johnny (uncredited)
Edmund Elton...Elderly Man (uncredited)
William Forrest...Reporter (uncredited)
Tom Hanlon...Fight Announcer (uncredited)
Joe Hickey...Gilbert (uncredited)
John Ince...Bill Collector (uncredited)
Selmer Jackson...Board Member (uncredited)
John Kerns...Sparring Partner (uncredited)
Bobby Larson...Chips (uncredited)
William Newell...Handler (uncredited)
Gerald Pierce...Newsboy (uncredited)
John Rogers...Escort (uncredited)
Abe Roth...Referee (uncredited)
Douglas Wood...Board Member (uncredited)
Bert Young...Taxi Driver (uncredited)
There is going to be heaven to pay when the folks around St. Peter's gate see "Here Comes Mr. Jordan," but who cares? For in the new film at the Music Hall Columbia has assembled its brightest people for a delightful and totally disarming joke at heaven's expense. Even the celestial guardians, it seems, can make an occasional mistake. And just because Messenger 7013 was overanxious to make a good impression on the boss, Joe Pendleton had to win the world's boxing championship in another man's body. A fantastic story? Well, we got it from Max Corkle, Joe's manager, who was there at the time. And if you don't believe us, just go to the Music Hall and see for yourself. Because "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" is gay, witty, tender and not a little wise. It is also one of the choicest comic fantasies of the year.
Joe was plenty sore about the whole thing, and who could blame him? Here he was, "in the pink of condition," as he kept telling Mr. Jordan afterward, and all set to take the championship, until Messenger 7013, who collected souls from a "place called New Jersey," gave him his ticket to heaven fifty years before his time. The fact that Joe's earthly remains were taken from the crashed plane and cremated made it difficult for Mr. Jordan to make amends. It didn't make things easier that when they looked over some of the bodies to be "shortly available" Joe was disgruntled and choosy. When a man's soul is intent on the world's championship he has to have a body that's in the pink.
Well, after a few tries, Joe did get his body, the championship and even a tidy little blonde that he'd met a couple of transmigrations back. Heaven, and especially Messenger 7013, breathed easier. But don't ask us to explain everything that happened. Even Corkle, we're afraid, never got things straight. It was pathetic when for the first time in his life he thought heaven was handing him a sure thing in a fighter and he was anxiously discussing his 40 per cent with a man who wasn't there. Pathetic and hilariously funny.
However you look at it, "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" is rollicking entertainment. Sidney Buchman and Seton Miller, who wrote the script, and Alexander Hall, who directed it, have had the rare sense to keep the comedy were it belongs--in the characters and situations rather than in a series of double exposures and process shots of ectoplastic spooks. The performances, with the exception of the distaff side, are tops. Robert Montgomery's dazed prizefighter keeps his place secure as one of the screen's deftest comedians. Jimmy Gleason again steals the films' most comic scene as the manager with cosmic premonitions. Claude Rains, as Mr. Jordan, has all the kindly authority of an arch-angel. And save a line for Edward Everett Horton, the peripatetic Messenger 7013, who started it all.
Meanwile, if all the heavenly guardians are as obliging and convivial as those in "Here Comes Mr. Jordan," we know why Little Eva couldn't wait. --- T.S.