WARNING: SPOILERS

The way Warren Beatty looks on the poster and throughout half the film—that gray track suit and zipper hoodie—may be the first movie “look” I actively pursued for myself. I thought, “That looks good, I could look good in that.” No. Just 15, with a concave chest and narrow shoulders, the track suit I bought was thick and cumbersome and bulged in all the wrong places. I was practically swaddled in it. I looked less Warren Beatty and more Michelin Man.

Back then, I remember my father trying to tell me the movie’s lineage but merely confusing me. It’s a remake of a 1940s film, he said, but not the one called “Heaven Can Wait” (1943), an Ernst Lubitsch comedy about a man reviewing his life in Hades. No, it’s actually a remake of “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” (1941), about boxer Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery), plucked from life 50 years before his time. Turns out it’s even more confusing than Dad knew. “Mr. Jordan” was based upon a play, “Wonderful Journey” by Harry Segall. Segall’s original title? “Heaven Can Wait.”

Initially, Beatty, the producer, wanted Muhammad Ali to star. At one time, he wanted Cary Grant to return from retirement to play Mr. Jordan. He sought Arthur Penn, or Mike Nichols, or Peter Bogdanovich to direct. He didn’t get any of his wishes.

Instead, he just made a great movie.

March 20, 2025
“Heaven Can Wait” is poignant without dragging you down, a love story without hardly seeming to try, plus a not-bad sports movie—football rather than boxing, because Beatty was more footballer than boxer. A box-office hit, it was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including four for Beatty: producer, actor, director, screenplay. It won zero. For some reason, current IMDb users give it a 6.9 rating. Fucking kids.

Is this really Beatty’s first directing credit? Part of me thinks Beatty was always directing. But yes, it is. He’s co-director with Buck Henry. Equally shocking, he directed only five feature films in his entire career:

1. “Heaven Can Wait” (1978)
2. “Reds” (1981)
3. “Dick Tracy (1990)
4. “Bulworth” (1998)
5. “Rules Don’t Apply” (2016)

Joe Pendleton (Beatty) is a Los Angeles Rams quarterback on the wrong side of 30 trying to make a comeback via perpetual fitness and a very 1970s So Cal diet of liver and whey. It’s working. “He’s looking awful good” the various coaches say on the sidelines as Joe airs out another pass. One of those coaches, Max Corkle (Jack Warden), is already on his side, and eventually the others come around. Max gives him the good news: The following Sunday he’ll start for the Rams rather than Tom Jarrett. Joe receives the news more worried than happy and goes for another bikeride in preparation. We see him ride into a tunnel and a reckless driver revving it from the other side. Joe doesn’t come out.

Cut to: puffs of clouds, a whimsical score from Dave Grusin (also nom’ed), and Buck Henry leading the track-suited and thoroughly confused Joe toward an airplane to take him (one assumes) to heaven. Joe ain’t having it. He’s starting on Sunday. The manager, Mr. Jordan (James Mason—a helluva backup to Cary Grant), comes over, and amid the back and forth, including Joe doing pushups in the clouds, asks when Joe Pendleton is due to arrive. He’s told: March 20, 2025, 10:17 a.m. The Escort, a newbie, thought the crash looked brutal, wanted to spare him pain, and removed him prematurely. “So just put me back,” Joe says.

Too late. He’s been cremated.

Now it’s a matter of finding a new body for him. And not just any body—one that can play quarterback. Who do they see? 1) A tightrope walker, 2) a German racecar driver, and 3) a millionaire industrialist, Leo Farnsworth, whose wife Julia and right-hand man Tony (Dyan Cannon, with Farrah hair, and Charles Grodin, impeccable), have just poisoned him in his bathtub. Nah, Joe says. Then Betty Logan (Julie Christie) shows up, trying to save the township of Pagglesham, England, where her father lives, and where Farnsworth Industries is threatening everyone’s health. 

Joe: Somebody oughta help her.
Mr. Jordan: You can help her, Joe. You can be Leo Farnsworth.

(I can’t help but hear James Mason’s voice with that line.)

So he agrees—conditionally, temporarily—and Leo’s reappearance causes the wife to scream, and the right-hand man to wonder what games he’s playing as, over the days, his wheeler-dealer boss asks questions that a Business 101 student would be embarrassed to ask. (Ex.: “What’s a stockholder?”) More than pursuing Betty, Joe/Leo, who looks to us like Joe but to everyone else like Leo, tries to get his body in shape so he can quarterback for the Rams. Yes, that dream doesn’t die. When he can’t get a tryout with the team, he buys it for 10 times its value—and a fraction of its current value. And in one of the movie’s most poignant scenes, Joe/Leo brings Max to the estate and convinces him that he really is Joe Pendleton: He fixes his neck as Joe always did, he tells him secrets only Joe knew, and he repeats the line Joe heard Max say at Joe’s gravesite: “They don't have a football team in heaven, so God couldn't make me first-string.”

Did Jack Warden play everyone’s older pal/mentor in the 1970s? Feels like it, but I guess it’s mostly this and “All the President’s Men.” He got nom’ed for this as well as Beatty’s previous film, “Shampoo.” I would’ve given him the nom here just for his reaction shot when Joe says the above line. Beautiful. 

There’s also a love story, seeming effortless, and Julia and Tony are still trying to kill Leo, and eventually succeed. At which point Joe pops up wearing the track suit again and carrying his clarinet. So whose body does Joe get now? Tom Jarrett’s. During the big game, Jarrett goes down and would’ve died; instead, Joe takes his place and leads the Rams to a Super Bowl victory. And then he gets the girl. Well, someone does.

Dazed and distracted
You see, the powers that be, Mr. Jordan, et al., take away his memory of ever being Joe Pendleton. I guess you could say Joe’s essence winds up in Jarrett’s body and with Jarrett’s life history. He thinks he’s Tom Jarrett, but there’s something in his eyes that reminds Betty of Leo Farnsworth—who was, of course, Joe Pendleton. She sees the Leo/Joe in him. It’s a bit of a cheat but I suppose it says something about the eternal aspect of love—if one buys into that kind of thing. 

Anyway, it’s lovely. And smart. Beatty has never gotten enough credit for casting smart actresses in smart roles opposite him, while he always played dumb. The women opposite him were the ones who knew the way the world worked: Faye Dunaway, Julie Christie, Annette Benning, Halle Berry. Compare this with, say, Robert Redford forever showing women the ropes. As a producer, Beatty is a feminist, but since he also loved schtupping them he’s not viewed this way.

As an actor, Beatty’s got a nice light comedic touch. He gives a great line reading on “I’m not really Leo Farnsworth!” with that slight snort. As usual, he plays dazed and distracted throughout. The true revelation for me this time is Charles Grodin. Every line, every look, is funny. How he turns an underling cuckolding and murdering his boss into comedy gold needs studying.