This is a good movie but the cast of Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, James Mason, Jack Warden, Dyan Cannon, Charles Grodin, Buck Henry and Vincent Gardenia must have had a lot of clout with the Academy of Arts and Sciences for this film to have been nominated for 9 Academy Awards because it's not that good. Nominated in most of the major categories including Best Picture, Best Director for Beatty and Henry, Best Actor for Beatty, Best Supporting Actor for Jack Warden, Best Supporting Actress for Dyan Cannon and Best Screenplay for Beatty and Elaine May as well as nominations for Best Cinematography, Music Score and for Art Direction for which it won it's solo Oscar. The Golden globes actually gave it their Best Picture, Best Actor for Beatty and Best Supporting Actress for Cannon, awards. Cannon deserved her Oscar and Warden was fairly nominated and William Fraker was also fairly nominated for Cinematography. This is a romantic comedy/fantasy that is a tribute to the romantic comedy fantasy films popular in the 1930's and 1940's and take it's character and basic storyline from the 1941 movie Here Comes Mr. Jordan and it's title from the 1943 movie Heaven Can Wait but Warren Beatty is not as romantically comedic as Robert Montgomery or Don Ameche were in their respective lead roles and he isn't as romantically comedic as he was in Shampoo. I saw this during it's initial release in the theater and have seen it a few times since and would give it a 7.5 out of 10.
Review of Heaven Can Wait
Heaven Can Wait
(1978)
Good romantic comedy/fantasy film but not worthy of 9 Oscar nominations
15 March 2006