Before making his masterpiece Reds (1981), Warren Beatty produced, directed, co-wrote and starred in Heaven Can Wait (1978), a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). Compared to the histrionics of Reds, Heaven Can Wait is a relatively small and intimate film. Heaven Can Wait is the type of romantic fantasy that Hollywood used to make in the era of Capra, Lubitsch, Hawks, and Borzage. Like Peter Bogdanovich before him, Beatty updates that classical Hollywood romanticism for the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam, postmodernist age.
But Heaven Can Wait is not the product of Warren Beatty alone. Co-director Buck Henry and co-writer Elaine May contributed to the project. Both Henry and May were considered two of the greatest comic writers of the seventies and bring a touch of humanism to even the most far fetched of narrative premises. Elaine May in particular would become indispensable to Beatty’s Reds as a script doctor. Heaven Can Wait may be a film with Beatty’s voice, but it is the humor of Henry and May that it is filtered through.
As touching as the romance between Beatty and Julie Christie is it is the cultural references and the madcap plotting of Charles Grodin and Dyan Cannon that steal the laughs. Heaven Can Wait lampoons corporate politics and intrigue while simultaneously imbuing a murder plot with a healthy dose of slapstick. The ruling class in Heaven Can Wait is little more than a mob of incompetent goofballs busy with plotting their rise to power.
It’s this blend of romance, humor, and life affirming spirituality that has made Heaven Can Wait an enduring classic. Its nine Academy Award nominations is a testament to its popularity. Heaven Can Wait may not be as assured a film as Reds or as formally audacious, but it is just as engrossing and enjoyable.
