Rent Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Comedy-Fantasy. - Here Comes Mr. Jordan review by Steve

Screwball fantasy about a boxer (Robert Montgomery) who crashes his small aircraft and is assumed dead by the inexperienced clerk (Edward Everett Horton) at the pearly gates. Big mistake. The fighter has to be found a new body by heaven's head of department (Claude Rains) as his own was cremated.  

He is billeted in the fresh corpse of a murdered banker. The boxer is just an honest guy who wants the world to be a better place. But he discovers everything is corrupt, whether the stock market or the fight game. His consolation is Evelyn Keyes, who he runs into no matter whose body he is in. It was meant to be.

 Robert Montgomery is a little too much of a dumb klutz. Everything is explained to him three times in case the audience isn't paying attention. And Claude Rains twinkles far too unctuously. But this is a pretty funny story with a fertile premise that would be remade many times. Keyes brings plenty of Hollywood glamour.

It tells us that what happens is meant to be, and we would understand this if we saw the whole picture. Hardly the most progressive of philosophies. But it's easy to see that this is intended to be gentle solace to those suffering loss. It was released with the world at war, and America's entry was confirmed a few months later, after Pearl Harbour. Before the end of the year, Montgomery was in the US navy.

“He’s being murdered, Joe.” - Here Comes Mr. Jordan review by LJ

There is a neat idea at the heart of this romcom that has clearly inspired other movies since. It is a fun ride except for the underwhelming ‘romance’ that is supposed to be a catalyst and is instead almost non-existent. I did not like where the story ultimately ends up.

A Criterion BluRay(despite what it says above). - Here Comes Mr. Jordan review by LE

It's good to see films from this era which aren't necessarily from the top tier but are simply examples of very well-made Classical Hollywood - the kind of films that haven't been made since the studio system was broken up in the 1950s. There's hundreds of films of this standard, many almost forgotten. I only rented this one as it is a Criterion release and they usually make brilliant discs with great extras.

Unfortunately the print was mediocre at best. I assume it has been cleaned up but it wasn't pristine by any stretch. The film itself is an easy watch - a story that probably seemed novel at the time but which a modern audience has seen many times by now. For this reason the exposition of the film is layered on pretty thick (and there are plotholes the size and depth of Boris Johnson's underpants), but Alexander Hall directs it with efficiency and with an admirable lack of sentimentality. Claude Rains is unsurprisingly perfect in the title role. And James Gleeson delivers a heroic comic performance. I do feel a couple of the other actors may have been somewhat miscast, including Montgomery in the lead. As luck would have it, Criterion supply, as an extra, a Lux Radio Show of the same story with Cary Grant in Montgomery's place and it works much better. That performance is also brought to life by having an audience to laugh at the funny bits. It becomes almost joyous at times.

There's also an interesting, though somewhat peripheral, interview with Montgomery's daughter, plus a fascinating discussion between two film scholars about the film and it's legacy.