List Price: $29.95You Pay Only: $21.99 You Save: $7.96 (27%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9781559409612
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
ISBN: 1559409614
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Criterion
Region Code: 1
Release Date: June 14, 2005
Running Time: 112 minutes
Sales Rank: 18150
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: August 11, 1943
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Newly deceased playboy Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche) presents himself to the outer offices of Hades where he asks a bemused Satan for permission to enter the gates of Hell. Though the Devil doubts Henry's sins will qualify him for eternal damnation, Henry proceeds to recount a lifetime spent wooing and pursuing women. Nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture and Director, Heaven Can Wait is an enduring classic that showcases director Ernst Lubitsch's trademark blend of wit, urbanity, and grace.
Amazon.com essential video:
The last masterwork by Ernst Lubitsch--whose other gems include Trouble in Paradise, Lady Windermere's Fan, Ninotchka, and The Shop Around the Corner--Heaven Can Wait was nominated for best picture and director Oscars in its day but largely neglected thereafter. Partly it's a matter of no one expecting a 1943 Fox movie featuring Don Ameche, the star of so many bland Technicolor musicals at that studio, to be a comedy of rare loveliness. Also, there's the confusion engendered by the existence of another film with the same title: the 1978 Warren Beatty movie that was the remake of a classic '40s comedy-fantasy--but Here Comes Mr. Jordan, not Heaven Can Wait. It's high time to get our priorities straight.
Following his demise, the aristocratic Henry Van Cleve (Ameche), having no hope of Paradise, betakes himself 'where all his life so many people had told him to go.' Hell, or at least its antechamber, would appear to be a luxury hotel in neoclassical mode, and--this is a Lubitsch movie, after all--His Satanic Excellency (Laird Cregar) is a perfect gentleman and the most gracious of hosts. To establish his credentials for spending eternity there, Henry begins to narrate a life which, though lacking any notable crimes, 'has been one continuous misdemeanor.'
Centered in a Fifth Avenue mansion left over from 19th-century New York, the film is Lubitsch and writing partner Samson Raphaelson's valentine to 'an age that has vanished, when it was possible to live for the charm of living.' Spanning more than half a century, it chronicles the high points of Henry's life so delicately that--in a variation on the strategies of Lubitsch-Raphaelson's risque '30s classics--it leaves some of them entirely offscreen, their emotional impact measured by what the characters feel and say about them afterward. We'll leave it to you to find out what they are. Suffice it to say that Ameche and Gene Tierney--as Martha, the love of Henry's life--give performances far subtler than anything else in their Fox contract-player careers, and there are sublime opportunities for those peerless character actors Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, and Marjorie Main. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - what happened anyways?
Hmmm. This movie could have been very cute, and has several fine and comical parts. Unfortunately, too many things don't follow or are clumsily explained, not too mention it should be a good 15 minutes shorter. For me, it would have been a much better story if all of Ameche's so called "sins" were only misunderstandings/misperceptions
from his squareish family (as many seem to be). I was fully expecting them to explained as such by the devil himself at the end, and that he would fully realize his fine character as the devil boots him to heaven.
But if i'm supposed to understand that he really sinned, why is he going to heaven, and what sense does that make alongside his doting relation to his wife? I think this movie is either generally misunderstood or not fully realized, or worse both.
Rating:  - A great old movie
This movie was a delight to find! I enjoyed it when I was a teenager and never forgot it. A wonderful movie. I highly recommend it!
Rating: - Heaven Can Wait
A deft, subtly brilliant romantic comedy by the great Lubitsch, "Heaven" examines a privileged man whose boyish love of courtship colors his devotion to his wife, making his life "one continuous misdemeanor." Penned by the gifted Samson Raphaelson and shot in lavish Technicolor, "Heaven" marries urbane wit and bittersweet themes about youth and aging, folly and regret. Ameche and Tierney are a handsome, appealing pair from their first meeting in a bookshop, while Charles Coburn (as scampish Grandpa Hugo) and Allyn Joslyn (as Henry's strait-laced cousin Albert) round out a fabulous supporting cast. Delicate, charming, and almost effortlessly moving.
Rating: - Great story with great actors
Extremely well done story about married people in the 1900s. If you don't cry at the end you're really tough. I recommend this movie to anyone who likes people.
Rating: - A witty, humane, thoughtful movie directed by Ernst Lubitsch and written by Samson Raphaelson
"As Henry Van Cleve's soul passed over The Great Divide, he realized that it was extremely unlikely that his next stop could be Heaven. And so, philosophically, he presented himself where innumerable people had so often told him to go."
Henry (Don Ameche) is greeted courteously by His Excellency (Laird Cregar). "I presume your funeral was satisfactory?" the devil asks. "Well...there was a lot of crying," Henry says, "so I believe everybody had a good time." His Excellency explains that while he will consider Henry's request, there must be good reasons to avoid going Up There. "If you meet our requirements, we'll be only too glad to accommodate you. Would you be kind enough to mention, for instance, some outstanding crime you've committed " "Crime...crime...I'm afraid I can't think of any," Henry says. "But I can safely say my whole life was one continuous misdemeanor."
Heaven Can Wait is the witty, nostalgic, gentle and surprisingly thoughtful tale of Henry Van Cleve, philanderer, wealthy lay-about and a man far from noble. Under Ernst Lubitsch's direction and with Samson Raphaelson's screenplay, Heaven Can Wait is, as critic Andrew Sarris says, "a hidden masterpiece."
His Excellency is intrigued and asks Henry to tell him his story. Henry believes that he can do this only through the women in his life, and, in one linear flashback, he does, starting as a babe in a bassinet. Henry loves women, he loves the pursuit, he loves the pleasures of the chase, the theater, ... Read More
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