Here Comes Mr Jordan '93

 

 

Create your own review

It is a shame that this delightful comedy isn't better known today. Part of the reason might lie in the fact that the film's star Robert Montgomery (father of Elizabeth Montgomery of BEWITCHED), after a stint in the military in WW II, did very little acting following the war. Therefore, he doesn't have many later films to draw attention to his career as a whole. Also, after the war he because deeply involved in political matters, and was one of Hollywood's more avid Communist hunters. For whatever reason, the film does not today have the reputation it deserves.

There have been two remakes of this film, so some explanation is in order. HERE COMES MR. JORDAN was a film version of a play by Harry Segal titled HEAVEN CAN WAIT. There was a 1944 film by Ernst Lubitsch called HEAVEN CAN WAIT starring Don Ameche, but that movie had nothing in common with HERE COMES MR. JORDAN (apart from being an equally superb comedy). In 1978, Warren Beatty wanted to remake HERE COMES MR. JORDAN using the original play's title with Muhammad Ali in the lead role, but Ali's schedule made this impossible, so he cast himself in the lead and transformed the central character into a football quarterback. Not as good as the original film, this actually wasn't a bad movie at all. In 2001, the film was remade again as DOWN TO EARTH, starring Chris Rock. I often love Chris Rock, but this film is not merely one of the low points of his career: it is a miserable film on every level, with the dreadful decision to make our hero a comic rather than an athlete.

Because of the remakes, the plot is familiar: Joe Pendleton, a boxer with a penchant for playing the saxophone and a shot at the title, is accidentally taken to heaven fifty years too early by an overzealous angel who wrongly assumes that he is about to die. The angel, Messenger 7013 (played marvelously by the inimitable Edward Everett Horton), brings Joe to his supervisor, Mr. Jordan (played magnificently by the ultra-suave and civilized Claude Rains). It is decided to provide Joe with a new body, where upon he tries in his new millionaire's body to get back into shape ("in the pink") in order to get a new shot at the championship. The only trouble is that the millionaire's wife and lover want to kill him so they can get his money and each other. Rounding out a great cast is Evelyn Keyes as the girlfriend of Joe (and the love interest of his subsequent incarnations) and James Gleason, Joe's trainer, who nearly steals ever scene he is in. The scene where Joe, in his new body, hires Gleason and then tries to convince him of his real identity, is just hysterical.

More people need to see this film. It remains one of the finer comedies made immediately before the onset of WW II, and is vastly better than the two films based upon it. It deserves far more attention than it has, in recent years, received.

Stories which carry an audience to other worlds or realms of experience are enthusiastically received regardless of trends, fads, or the prevailing national mood. HERE COMES MR. JORDAN is a variation of the usual simple motif of a benevolent angel being sent on a mission to earth. The film begins its rather complicated and enjoyable tale by turning the tables and having a human being journey to heaven to rectify an angelic error. This delightful 1941 film is delightfully refreshing, but its real strength lies in the performance of Robert Montgomery. His sustaining sense of awe concerning all that is happening never falters nor becomes overdone, and he never allows the audience to entertain the idea that the film is a fantasy. Claude Rains performance as Mr. Jordan is immaculate, and Edward Everett Horton makes one hope that none of his descendents are still in the heavenly messenger business! Strangely enough, as clever and quick as the male actors' dialogue is, the dialogue is proportiately bland and unimaginitive for the women. James Gleason as feisty Max Corkle comes close to scene stealing, and all the male characters have solid well-written roles.

Robert Montgomery made an effective transition from debonair 30's leading man to 40's tough guy, but it took me a little while to get used to and I laughed a little at first at what sounded like an East Side Kids bronx honk imitation! Great plot and acting in a story about likable and feisty prizefighter Joe Pendelton, who is destined to die in fifty years, but is accidentally "snatched up" by an inexperienced and tart-tongued angel, played by Edward Everett Horton, with the always wonderful Claude Rains as Mr. Jordan, head honcho of the otherworld. Unfortunately Joe's body has been cremated by the time they locate it to put his spirit back in, and the three look long and hard to find a new body that will satisfy Joe's picky requirements. He reluctantly agrees to be temporarily placed in the body of just-departed Bruce Farnsworth, a wealthy and ruthless playboy recently killed by his wife and her lover, to help Bette Logan (played by a luminous Evelyn Keyes) get her unjustly jailed father out of prison, a man Farnsworth used as a fall guy. But Joe falls deeply in love with the grateful Bette, a problem since the dastardly duo who offed Farnsworth the first time are still around and plotting again to kill the man they naturally believe is still him. There is a tender poignancy in Joe's making the most of the time left in his temporary body before the inevitable happens, by attempting to prepare an understandably confused and concerned Bette about his impending death and "return" as somebody else. He tells her this in vague "supposing if" terms and not the truth because she naturally wouldn't believe it--who could? Well, his inevitable demise does come at the hands of the terrible two and he is transferred to the body of a principled prizefighter named Ralph Murdoch, just-killed in the ring during a crooked match and a would-be opponent if Joe hadn't "died." Mr. Jordan, knowing Joe has found his rightful "place", erases all Joe's knowledge of who he once was so he can be his own person without any of the confusion, memory and baggage of his past life. In a stunningly touching ending, by chance (or is it really?) Joe/Ralph encounters Bette and there is an instant mystical recognition and chemistry which they both experience--then Bette recalls what she thought was Farnsworth's bewildering ramblings at the time, and realizes he has "returned" to her. An excellent movie with just about everything in it to please anyone--humor, the supernatural, romance, poignancy, murder, boxing, and fascinating and compelling matters of predestination and fate, "reincarnation," our spirits/souls transcending physical cloakings, and how love never truly dies.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 6 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard Not To Like
Sorry, cineastes, but this review will not include terms like 'auteur', 'mise en scene' or 'decontextualized'. Read more

Published on Aug 25 2001 by El Kabong

5.0 out of 5 stars It's in the Pink !
I wish I could have been alive to make this film Best Picture. Out of all of Robert Montgomery's career, this landmark film ( with the exception of "Private Lives")... Read more

Published on Jun 27 2000 by E.G. Hardsworth

5.0 out of 5 stars Magical Fantasy
If you really want to get depressed, watch the Warren Beatty remake of this classic.

If you wish to save the tylenol...dont even watch the remake. Read more

Published on Nov 4 1999

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

› See all 6 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Search Listmania!