Good evening faithful readers, right this way. Welcome to Hell the latest installment of I’d Like to Blank the Academy. I believe you’re here to learn the story of Mr. Henry Van Cleve? Did you know it’ll actually be his 151st birthday tomorrow? Your timing is excellent! It’s an extremely average tale, however, I should warn you. But you’ve made the trip all the way down here already, so why not: read on!
Previews
What, if anything, did we know about this coming attraction before we watched it?
Ellen: I’m pretty much always interested in a depiction of the afterlife, and it was described as a comedy, so I’m optimistic!
Tyler: Prior to doing some research for your Pick Three Choose One for this post, I would’ve guessed that with a name like Heaven Can Wait this would be some melodramatic love story about someone escaping death. Maybe someone coming back from war? Who knows. But since I wanted to give you something at least a little spooky for our Halloween-ish post (and we’ve already covered ostensibly spookier movies like The Exorcist and The Sixth Sense), a movie in which our protagonist is already dead seemed to fit the bill. Let’s get to ~booooo~ it!
Plots & Feelings
This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
Short Version (courtesy of IMDb): An old roué arrives in Hades to review his life with Satan, who will rule on his eligibility to enter the Underworld.
Tyler: Here’s the definition for roué, in case any of you are like me and have never seen this word before.
Long Version (modified from Wikipedia and formatted to fit your screen):
Adorable credits with a cross-stitched motif usher us into the movie and then take us… STRAIGHT TO HELL! *heavy metal guitar riff* An old man named Henry Van Cleve enters the reception area, where a distinguished gentleman known as “His Excellency” greets him. Henry recounts how he ate everything his doctor forbade for his last meal, and now he’s presented himself where he believes he belongs. His Excellency is not convinced of his qualifications after a glance at his file, so Henry embarks on the tale of his life.
Ellen: The design of the opening credits gave me big Fargo vibes.
Tyler: I feel like we’ve seen this in a handful of movies from the 40s and 50s, it’s got big Americana vibes. I was also surprised to see that this is in color, as I for some reason expected it to be in black-and-white.
Tyler: Henry described his life as “one continuous misdemeanor” which gave me quite a chuckle.
Even as a baby, Henry had his mother and grandmother fighting over him. As a child, he learned to charm girls at the park by giving them beetles1. He claims his real awakening came via his French maid/tutor, with whom he got caught… having wine at 152. He’s ratted out (in French no less) by his annoying, self-righteous cousin Albert. When Henry reaches age 26, he’s got a penchant for “musical comedy girls” and is simply handed wads of cash by his hapless parents. His self-made millionaire of a grandfather, Hugo, is the only one who understands him and calls him out on his nonsense.
Henry is late for his own 26th birthday party because he met a girl with whom he’s enamored3. And wouldn’t you know it, Albert is introducing his fiancée to the family this evening too! It’s Miss Martha Strable, of the Kansas City Strables, who are known for their beef (both with each other and from cows). She and Henry end up hiding from a dreadful musical performance in the library, and of course: it was Martha that Henry met earlier! A fairly innocent secret by his standards, but not so innocent is the fact that they kiss! And then decide to elope immediately! The Strables are horrified, Albert is humiliated (and pompous, still, somehow), and Grandpa Hugo is thrilled and sends a wedding present after them.
Tyler:
Me: Henry why'd you kiss her?! Don't you dare let this be the beginning of an unearned love story.
This movie, five seconds later: “Let’s get married!”
Me: (takes a drink)
Ten years later, they have a child and are getting ready to celebrate both Henry’s 36th birthday and their 10th anniversary but oops: Martha sends Henry a telegram saying she bounced. There’s confusion, but a surprising lack of blame from the men. Grandpa in particular is like “she wouldn’t just up and leave unless you gave her a reason to, Henry!” Meanwhile in Kansas, the Strables are bickering via their butler Jasper and having a breakfast of lamb chops and pancakes4. None other than Albert Van Cleve shows up, and with Martha in tow! They met on the train, and she decided to come home. They just let Albert stay, I suppose.
Ellen: The breakfast scene is supposed to be comedic, but Mr. Strable’s cheese-grater-ass voice was pretty insufferable.
Tyler: I described his voice to “a frog who smoked twelve packs a day for forty years” in my notes.
During Approved Evening Activities™ of needlework, reading, and grumbling, yet more Van Cleves appear outside the windows: this time Henry and Hugo! They sneak upstairs (with the help of Jasper) to see Martha when she goes to bed. Apparently, Henry’s been running around buying cheap bracelets that weren’t going to Martha, even though he presents her with a $10,000 one5 from Cartier for their anniversary. They discuss, and eventually she decides to come back, and they elope from under the noses of Albert and her parents yet again!
Ellen: From the conversation, it wasn’t totally clear to me if Henry was actually stepping out on her or if it was a genuine misunderstanding. Wikipedia seemed to think he was in the clear.
Fifteen years pass in a montage of elaborate birthday cakes6, and Henry is now 51 for those of you keeping score at home. He enters the dressing room of chorus girl Peggy Nash before her show. She sees right through his flirting routine, immediately identifying him as her boyfriend Jack’s father. Henry doesn’t want his son to turn out like him, so he buys her off for $25,000 (at her suggestion), and his ego definitely takes a hit when she accurately pegs him as 50. Back at home, Henry is proud of his achievement, but Martha is like “yeah I already knew and tbh think it’s fine.” Jack pops by to announce he broke up with Peggy and was really pleased by how easy it was, actually. Martha “comforts” Henry re: his loss of game, saying that she used to worry about dalliances, but now that he’s got a bit of a tummy, she knows he’s hers forever!
Tyler: Her point about Henry’s “tummy” is one of several body-shaming comments throughout the movie, all of which feel quite random and icky in hindsight.
On their 25th anniversary, Martha receives a mysterious phone call… from a doctor. She’s been having dizzy spells, but not to worry! They dance together in the front hall one last time, and she passes away a few months later. Following her death, Henry reverts to his old ways, sneaking inside after a night of carousing, top hat in hand and hoping for cash from a family member. Jack is not amused, but Henry is really not gripping with aging well, hoping for a young reader to help him enjoy books again. Instead, he ends up with a series of nurses. On October 26th, 1942, the day after he turns 70, he dreams of a beautiful blonde, an ocean of whiskey and soda, and a luxury liner that carries him away.
Ellen: A man in his early 70s needs an age-appropriate companion? I think we’ve found our next Golden Bachelor!
Henry’s story now concluded, His Excellency very politely denies him entry, saying, “we don’t cater to your class of people here.” He and his cartoonish goatee suggest that Henry try the other place, where Martha and his grandfather are waiting for him. Henry is ushered into an elevator, and the operator sends it up.
Tyler: Who knew the literal Devil would be such a softy?
Intermission
Even though ILTBTA is free, please indulge us further and enjoy this quick “advertisement.”
This installment of ILTBTA is brought to you by … the Kansas Tourism Board!
Here in Kansas, we might not be as fast-talking or flashy as those urbanites in New York City, but we’ve got all the same modern amenities as the big cities! We’ve got electricity (in some places), automobiles (coming soon!), and telephones (or so we read in the paper) … and all this with none of those pesky tall buildings. And depending on who you ask and what you believe, we also have the new Dorothy Gale Portal to Oz.
Use promo code ILTBTA to get 56% off any Strable meat product, straight from Kansas’ own Strable Farms!
Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat?
Love a good Wikipedia rabbit hole in search of some fun facts? Us too.
Heaven Can Wait’s Wikipedia page has some interesting facts and anecdotes that we recommend you read through, but here are a few of our favorites:
Heaven Can Wait is based on the play Birthday by Hungarian playwright Ladislaus Bus-Fekete, with a screenplay by Samson Raphaelson. Raphaelson wrote the 1925 play The Jazz Singer, the film adaptation of which is considered to be the first talking picture.
Ellen: Gotta say, Birthdays is a much more apt title.
Tyler: Right? And Hell Can Wait seems more accurate, anyhow.
German-born moviemaker Ernst Lubitsch directed Heaven Can Wait, earning his third Oscar nomination for Best Director (he lost to Michael Curtis for his work on Casablanca, so uh yeah good job Academy). Biographer Scott Eyman described Lubitsch’s style, the “Lubitsch touch,” as such:
With few exceptions Lubitsch's movies take place neither in Europe nor America but in Lubitschland, a place of metaphor, benign grace, rueful wisdom... What came to preoccupy this anomalous artist was the comedy of manners and the society in which it transpired, a world of delicate sangfroid, where a breach of sexual or social propriety and the appropriate response are ritualized, but in unexpected ways, where the basest things are discussed in elegant whispers; of the rapier, never the broadsword... To the unsophisticated eye, Lubitsch's work can appear dated, simply because his characters belong to a world of formal sexual protocol. But his approach to film, to comedy, and to life was not so much ahead of its time as it was singular, and totally out of any time.
The musical score was done by legendary composer Alfred Newman, who composed scores for over 200 movies in his illustrious career, including How Green Was My Valley, All About Eve, and previous ILTBTA subject Airport. Newman’s nine Oscars on a staggering forty-five nominations help the extended Newman family be the most Oscar-nominated family in Hollywood.
A review at the time from Bosley Crowther in The New York Times described Heaven Can Wait as “certainly one you’ll want to see” that is “is poking very sly and sentimental fun at Eighteen Nineties naughtiness,” despite also adding “has utterly no significance. Indeed, it has very little point …”
Ellen: My brain read that as Nineteen Eighties three times.
Oscar NomNomNomz
Since we all know a movie is nothing without the food and drink it incorporates.
It’s now time to award the Oscar for Best Snacktor in a Supporting Role7. And the nomnomnominees are:
A Strable steak straight from Kansas
Thick pancakes at Strable Estate breakfast
An ocean of whiskey and soda from Henry’s dream
A slice of birthday cake from one of Henry’s many birthday parties
And the Oscar goes to … the Strable steak! Unfortunately, Ellen stole the steak whilst screaming “WENDTE FARMS STEAK IS THE SUPERIOR STEAK!”, so Tyler will accept this award on its behalf.
Fill In The Blank
How did we really feel about The Academy nominating this?
Ellen: I’d like to make an appeal with His Excellency on the state of the Academy… I’m not totally sure what I’m supposed to believe about Henry. The best thing about him seems to be that good people love him, and the strength of that alone isn’t enough for me to root for you, my dude. If you were cool or interesting or worthwhile in any other way, we could talk. The worst thing about him is that he’s just kind of a low grade F boy, and I don’t necessarily think you belong in Hell for that either. There’s nothing to grab onto with him. And then when you compare this movie to the winner for this year (and the only other one I’ve seen so far), Casablanca, I mean, what are we doing here? I’m not offended by it, I’m not mad at it, I’m just kind of… nothing about it. Watching Heaven Can Wait can wait, amirite?
I suspect this is more of a nitpick of modern tastes, but I was far more interested in our bookend scenes than anything else. The imagined bureaucracy of complex concepts is fascinating to me, and I love seeing different interpretations. Shows like The Good Place and Loki do this so well, and making such lofty concepts as death and time as relatable as unjamming a printer gives great opportunity for whimsy and introspection in equal parts. We, uh, didn’t really do that here, so it feels more like a missed opportunity than anything else.
Tyler: I’d like to press a button and drop The Academy down to Hell. That’s a bit dramatic, but I did not care for this movie. I 100% agree with you on the wildly lopsided Best Picture nominee comparison with Casablanca, which is leaps and bounds better than Heaven Can Wait in almost every way imaginable. The movie begins by implying that the protagonist, despite being in Hell (by his own volition?), isn’t as evil as he thinks. We then spend the rest of the movie seeing him be … pretty shitty? For an ending that was predictable from the get-go, I assumed that I’d eventually come around to Henry and see some more redeeming qualities out of him, but nope. He’s too self-centered to be a compelling protagonist and not likable enough to be a good antihero. My feelings about Henry’s heavenly worthiness aside, I also didn’t think about this movie once in the days after we watched it, even forgetting most of the plot entirely, which is never a good sign.
Let The Credits Roll
Thanks for reading! Some quick housekeeping as you exit the theatre:
If you have plots and feelings of your own (on the movie or ILTBTA in general), feel free to comment on the post or simply reply to the email. If you liked reading this: tell your friends! If you hated reading this: tell your friends how much you hated it by forwarding it to them!
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Post-Credits Scene
Get a sneak peek at the next ILTBTA installment.
With our next post being released on Election Day (at least here in Virginia), as well as the horrifying rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Palestinianism spurred by the ongoing war in Israel and Gaza, we thought it was a good time for an on-the-nose movie that touched on these topics and more: 1940’s political comedy The Great Dictator. Directed, written, and produced by (not to mention starring) film icon Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator satirizes fascism, anti-semitism, and Nazis: fun! But for real, we’ve watched this one before and really enjoyed it, and we think you could too!
The Great Dictator is available to watch for free with an HBO Max subscription and can be rented for $3.99 (plus tax) everywhere else.
Until then, don’t go to Hell!
P.S. Fellow movie-fans: check out the short film The Hatchling, directed by Tyler's cousin Tim, for free on YouTube!
It was a different time??
Ellen: I thought this was going to be so much worse.
Tyler: See previous footnote.
Tyler: This involved some light-to-moderate stalking, which in hindsight is a wild representation of what romance used to look like back then (I presume).
?????
That’s well over $300k in today’s apology bracelets!
Sounds like my ex-wife!
Results tabulated and certified by the accountants at Ernst & Yum™.