BY TODD GARBARINI
I owe a lot to my late grandmother on my mother’s side. She
introduced the arts to me at a very early age. As far back as I can remember, her
household was always a place filled with music and laughter as the sounds of
Broadway show tunes, singer Allen Sherman and George Burns and Gracie Allen filtered
through her basement. In the summer of 1978, she told me about a new film that
had just come out which was a remake of an earlier black and white comedy that
she had enjoyed. I had heard the term “remake†the previous year when my father
took me to see King Kong as directed by John Guillermin starring Jeff
Bridges and Jessica Lange. This time, the “remake†in question was Heaven
Can Wait which had been based upon Alexander Hall’s Here Comes Mr.
Jordan (1941). I knew nothing of either film, but it was a day to go to the
movies with my grandmother, so I jumped at the chance.
Heaven Can Wait opened on Wednesday, June 28, 1978 as another starring
vehicle for Warren Beatty, an actor who was new to me. Coming on the heels of McCabe
& Mrs. Miller (1971), The Parallax View (1974) and Shampoo
(1975), Mr. Beatty was riding high and struck box office gold with this
colorful and charming update of an athlete who finds himself in a predicament
for the ages. I immediately liked his interpretation of Joe Pendelton, a
quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams (not a prize fighter as in the original
which, itself, was based on a stage play) training for the Super Bowl who has a
near-fatal bicycle accident which results in his appearing at a heavenly “way
station†with others who have just become deceased. His escort (Buck Henry)
introduces him to Mr. Jordan (James Mason) when he fails to convince Joe about
his worldly death and ultimate fate. Through their discussions, it becomes
clear that The Escort, for lack of a better term, jumped the gun and removed
Joe from the accident just before it happened – a big “no-no†and a
clear rule-breaker as far as the gentlemanly Mr. Jordan is concerned. To fix
this, The Escort must find a suitable body back on Earth to put Joe back into,
as his own body has already been cremated.
Leo Farnsworth is a millionaire who is
involved with many industrial and political affairs and is about to be murdered
by his wife Julia (Dyan Cannon) and her lover Tony Abbott (Charles Grodin) who
works for him. Joe steps into his shoes and perplexes the staff at his
(Farnsworth’s) character traits and sudden love of football, while also
shocking Julia and Tony following the “murderâ€. Joe/Leo finds himself in the
midst of a meeting with Betty Logan (Julie Christie) who is determined to stop
the reach of Farnsworth’s company’s negative effects on the environment. Deep
down, however, Joe’s/Leo’s only desire is to play football and get back to
playing with the Rams.
Mr. Beatty co-wrote the script with
Elaine May and co-directed the film with Buck Henry. The supporting cast in
this film are all excellent and charming, especially Ms. Cannon and Mr. Grodin,
both of whom I would go on to enjoy immensely in Revenge of the Pink Panther
(1978) and Midnight Run (1988), respectively. Jack Warden is also
terrific as Max Corkle, Joe’s trainer who is summoned to the Farnsworth estate and
is astonished when he is made aware of Joe’s transformation into Leo. I could
not help but feel overjoyed for Max as I knew that he missed his friend
terribly. James Mason is also wonderful with his dry expressions and comments.
Heaven made a huge impact on my life that year. For Halloween 1978,
I came very dangerously close to dressing in Joe’s trademark sneakers,
sweatpants and zippered sweatshirt, though I doubt that any of my fellow
classmates, who themselves were donning their best impressions of ghosts,
vampires, characters from Happy Days, Star Wars and Grease,
would have had the slightest idea of who I was trying to impersonate.
Coincidentally, Here Comes Mr. Jordan was airing on the 1:00 Movie on
Channel 9 in New York on Halloween. My mother’s uncle was the sole owner of a
then-$1200.00 top-loading Magnavox VCR which he used to record the movie for me
to view on a later date. I liked it just as much as the remake.
Heaven was nominated for nine Academy Awards in the Spring of 1979
and I wanted very badly to view the ceremonies. A start time of ten o’clock in
the evening for the broadcast on a school night ensured no such luck. I had to make
do with the movie tie-in novelization of the film as well as the Fotonovel, an
ingenious paperback reproduction of the entire film in color photos with all
the dialogue. I enjoyed Dave Grusin’s lovely musical score, though if anyone
had told me that I would have to wait until 2017 to purchase it on a device
known as a “compact disc†I would have been thoroughly confused and crestfallen
to say the least. Heaven ultimately won its sole Oscar for Best
Production Design, indubitably due in no small part to Northern California’s
beautiful Filoli Mansion that doubles as the Farnsworth estate. The Best
Picture accolades went to Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter.
Birney Lettick provided the marketing
campaign with the film’s sole key art for the promotion of the film, an
enormous tapestry of which was unfurled on the side of (Grauman’s?) movie
theater in Los Angeles which can be seen briefly in the 1978 John Travolta film
Moment by Moment.
Although released in July 1999 on DVD,
that pressing has been out-of-print for many years. Fortunately, “Paramount
Presents†has now reissued the film in a lovely transfer on Blu-ray. Inexplicably, there are
no extras, not even a trailer (although it does contain a code to access a digital version), but that should not stop you from purchasing one
of the most delightful romantic comedies from the 1970’s. A true classic.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON