IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,8
Director: Alexander Hall
Main Cast: Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes, Claude Rains, Rita Johnson, Edward Everett Horton, James Gleason
"The usually debonair Robert Montgomery stepped out of character in this classic comic fantasy to play a clean-cut boxer, Joe Pendleton, who's been sent to heaven before his time. Mr. Jordan, a kind of celestial executive, rectifies the error by loaning Pendleton the body of a millionaire named Bruce Farnsworth who's just been murdered by his wife. When she learns that he's alive again, the fun begins. The kind of beautifully executed film that turns the auteur theory on its head, it's driven by a script that always manages to keep its fiendishly complicated farcical maneuvers in perfect focus. Montgomery is wonderful as the simple boxer who just wants a shot at the title, as is Claude Rains as the dryly sardonic angel. But it's veteran James Gleason's Academy Award-winning performance as Joe's manager Max Corkle that steals the film. The scene in which Joe finally convinces Max that his spirit is inhabiting the body of Farnsworth is a masterpiece of comic acting. Here Comes Mr. Jordan is one of the most consistently clever romantic comedies of the 1940s, and richly deserving of the Oscars won by screenwriters Sidney Buchman, Seton I. Miller and Harry Segall. A sequel, Down to Earth, was filmed in 1947, with Roland Culver as Mr. Jordan; and in 1978, the original Jordan was remade by Warren Beatty as Heaven Can Wait." - www.allmovie.com
