Heaven Can Wait (1978)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Heaven Can Wait (1978) – W. Beatty

While watching Heaven Can Wait, which surely I must have seen before (but with only faint memories this time), I felt it rather silly – but now a day later, it seems rather sweet (not funny, but sweet).  Beatty (who also directed) plays a gridiron quarterback who is accidentally taken before his time by his heavenly escort (Buck Henry who co-directed). As his body has been cremated, he needs to be relocated into another body – someone who has just passed away – and it turns out to be millionaire Leo Farnsworth who apparently was a stereotypic evil capitalist.  Beatty’s character, an airhead, tries to make the morally right choices, despite the dismay caused in his Board of Directors and personal assistant (Charles Grodin, who also attempts to murder him with Farnsworth’s wife, Dyan Cannon).  But more importantly, he contacts his old trainer, played by Jack Warden, and convinces him he is reincarnated in Farnsworth’s body – and that he wants to play in and win the Super Bowl.  Of course, everyone thinks he is nuts, except love interest Julie Christie.  This is a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) with Jordan played here by James Mason; the earlier film was a big hit (Claude Rains was a better Jordan, but Beatty’s football player is more charismatic than Robert Montgomery’s boxer).  I think Beatty (and Buck Henry) made the right decision to keep the film as clean as its predecessor (no profanity, nudity, or violence) and it leaves you with a pleasant aftertaste.