Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Second viewing; first seen on January 11, 1990

A man dies and voluntarily heads towards Hell. At the entrance he meets the Devil and proceeds to tell him his life. The film then flashbacks to his early days and narrates his life, with emphasis on his amorous achievements.

A very good film on the preponderance of Nature over Nurture. Genetics is the mainstay of the whole structure, with abundant smart observations and a recurring catchphrase: "Where does he get it from?" We get to see a demonstration of how the human race gets aesthetically perfected from generation to generation, through the practice of free association between the sexes (rather than the old-fashioned marriages of convenience). Dramatic tension arises from recessiveness, which causes the dominant gene's phenotypical expression to skip one generation. This is implicitly shown as beneficial, as there is also need of conventional types with a strong work ethics and not much imagination. A good review by Ted Goranson may be read at the User Comments section on IMDB, or at his site (you must enter the film title on the search box). Here's a partial transcript:

[begin quote]
Out of the Barrel
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach
6 July 2005
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
A good story will charm even the devil.
Here's an uncharacteristically layered story. It has a thread of reality which we only peek. A man has been bad all his life. He's lied and cheated and as a result he's been sent to the anteroom to Hell where his case is reviewed.
He's given the option of telling his life and his version is what we see, a layer on top of that reality. In this layer, everyone loves him in spite of his lies, including his wife who ages little in 25 years. This version is rosy enough to convince the Devil to send him elsewhere.
The power of this story is reinforced just before it starts. A shrill woman with poor storytelling skills gets quickly sent through the floor to the flames.
Because this is somewhat formulaic, there's a small summary of the story embedded within, a well crafted comedy bit about the Katzenjammer Kids. Seems the week before, the Captain was entombed in an inescapable barrel. The comic this week (in a drawn out explanation) shows how he escaped. Something about a snake.
Casual viewers may wonder what this little play within the play is for. It is completely out of the mainstream of the story and is the only scene not directly concerned with our hero's life. Its there because the 20th Century rulebook said all big stories need a miniature version of itself within. Alert viewers will remember that everything we see is supposed to a remembrance of a life told to the Devil and everything except this would have been personally experienced by the narrator. So it really stands out because he cannot have recalled this.
Well, our hero escapes the barrel by telling the snake a story, and a good one (though the pacing is slow by today's standards).
Along the way, we get some of the lushest sets I've ever seen. It is as if all the cheap ornamentation of the dames in his memory have gone into decorating his imaginary barrel.
(...)
[end quote]

Regarding the "Captain in the Barrel" sequence, it provides a comment on the "marriage as a prison" theme, which is central to the movie; so, the sequence has indeed a lot to do with the "mainstream of the story".

Rating: 80 (up from 69)