A picture different from anything ever screened before!
1941-08-07
N/A
94 min
Boxer Joe Pendleton, flying to his next fight, crashes...because a Heavenly Messenger, new on the job, snatched Joe's spirit prematurely from his body. Before the matter can be rectified, Joe's body is cremated; so the celestial Mr. Jordan grants him the use of the body of wealthy Bruce Farnsworth, who's just been murdered by his wife. Joe tries to remake Farnsworth's unworthy life in his own clean-cut image, but then falls in love; and what about that murderous wife?
Robert Montgomery is really quite good in this engaging fantasy story. He's a boxer ("Joe") working with coach "Max" (the frequently scene-stealing James Gleason) for a crack at the world title. Then, suddenly, he is joining a queue to get into Heaven. Surely some mistake, he says - and after a bit of investigation by the eponymous administrator (Claude Rains) it is discovered that he's fifty years too early. Send him back - well unfortunately his friends were a little too zealous on the cremation front so there's no longer a body. "Jordan" concludes that it's best to find him another one - and they alight on millionaire "Farnsworth". It's a bit of a baptism of fire for "Joe" especially when his decision to do the right thing by some small investors earns him the enmity of his board and the need for yet another "host". He's getting fed up, "Jordan" is getting fed up - what's to be done? The story is amiably well written with Montgomery and developing love interest "Julia" (Rita Johnson) working well together as the story gathers an entertaining pace, tempered by a charmingly measured performance from Rains and Edward Everett Horton as the source of all the woes in the first place. It's Gleason, towards the end, that makes me smile - all thanks to some incredulity and a saxophone. Well worth a watch.
