Heaven Can Wait
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
With Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Charles Coburn.
US, 1943, DCP, color, 112 min.
DCP source: 20th Century Fox
With Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Charles Coburn.
US, 1943, DCP, color, 112 min.
DCP source: 20th Century Fox
Lubitsch’s one foray into Technicolor was this wistful picaresque about the life of Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche), a charming rake from the New York aristocracy. Playfully framed by Henry’s trip to a purgatorial waiting room, where a dapper Satan allows his potential tenant a chance to be redeemed, Heaven Can Wait unfolds as one sustained after-death remembrance. In doing so, it approximates the texture of memory, with Lubitsch lingering on momentous events, like young Henry’s impromptu marriage to Martha Strabel (Gene Tierney), and delicately eliding the more painful memories, as in a late ellipsis implying a major character’s death that counts among the director’s most poignant sleights of hand. Pensive as the film may be in its totality, however, it is wonderfully light and bawdy in the moment, with terrific supporting turns by Charles Coburn and Eugene Pallette as temperamental patriarchs, a teasing script that nods to Henry’s never-waning desire without needing to depict his erotic escapades, and a formidable show of the new color technology, which puts a festive shimmer on Lubitsch’s characteristically extravagant sets.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
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Trouble in Paradise
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1932
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Ninotchka
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1939
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Shoe Palace Pinkus / Meyer From Berlin
Live Musical Accompaniment by Jeff RapsisScreening on Film
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Madame DuBarry
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1919
Live Musical Accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
That Uncertain Feeling
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1941
Screening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Love Parade
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1929
Screening on FilmRecently Restored
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Doll
Live Musical Accompaniment by Martin MarksScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Kohlhiesel's Daughters
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1920
Live Musical Accompaniment by Jeff RapsisScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Lady Windermere's Fan
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1925
Live Musical Accompaniment by Martin MarksScreening on FilmRecently Restored
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
If I Had a Million
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, et al, 1932
Screening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Broken Lullaby AKA The Man I Killed
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1932
Screening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Design For Living
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1933
Screening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
One Hour With You
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1932
Screening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
So This is Paris
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1926
Live Musical AccompanimentScreening on FilmRecently Restored
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
When I Was Dead / The Pride of the Firm
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Carmen AKA Gypsy Blood
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1918
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Heaven Can Wait
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1943
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Smiling Lieutenant
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1931
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Monte Carlo
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1930
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Eyes of the Mummy
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1938
Screening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Eternal Love
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1929
Screening on FilmRecently Restored
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Three Women
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1924
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Anna Boleyn
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1920
Live Musical Accompaniment by Jeff RapsisScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Shop Around the Corner
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1940
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Sumurun
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1919
Live Musical Accompaniment by Martin MarksScreening on FilmRecently Restored
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
To Be or Not To Be
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1942
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Oyster Princess
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1919
Live Musical Accompaniment by Robert HumphrevilleScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Merry Widow
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1934
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Wildcat AKA The Mountain Cat
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1921
Live Musical Accompaniment by Andrew SimpsonScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1928
Live Musical Accompaniment by Martin MarksScreening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Ninotchka
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1939
Screening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Cluny Brown
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1946
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Angel
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1937
Screening on Film
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That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst ...
Cluny Brown
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, 1946
Screening on Film
