Chester Conklin | Through the Shattered Lens

1941’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan tells the story of Joe Pendelton (Robert Montgomery).

Joe’s a boxer, an honest and kind-hearted guy who is in training for the big title fight. Despite the concerns of his trainer, Max (James Gleason), Joe decides to take his own private airplane out for a flight. A freak accident causes the plane to go into a nosedive and Joe suddenly finds himself standing amongst the clouds with a bunch of other people who are waiting for their chance to enter Heaven.

7013 (Edward Everett Horton), an angel, explains that he took Joe’s soul up to heaven when he saw that the plane was about to crash. Joe is not happy about this. He wants his title fight! 7013’s superior, Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), checks his records and discovers that a mistake has been made. Joe was supposed to live until 1991 and he was also supposed to win the boxing championship. Unfortunately, Max has had Joe’s body cremated. Mr. Jordan decides to put Joe’s soul into the body of someone else who is scheduled to die. Joe asks to be put in the body of an athlete so that he can pursue his boxing career.

Instead, Joe ends up in the body of a middle-aged banker named Bruce Farnsworth. Farnsworth has been poisoned by his wife (Rita Johnson) and her lover (John Emery). At first, Joe refuses to become Farnsworth but when he sees his murderers taunting Bette (Evelyn Keyes), whose father was defrauded by Farnsworth, Joe changes his mind. His murderers are shocked when Farnsworth turns out to be alive. Bette is shocked when the previously cold Farnsworth helps her get back the money that her father lost. And Max is shocked when Farnsworth calls him to the mansion and explains that he’s really Joe Pendleton. Only with Joe/Farnsworth plays the saxophone badly does Max believe what Joe says. Joe asks Max to train him for the boxing match that he was scheduled to fight while alive. Max agrees but Mr. Jordan warns Joe that, if he’s going to fulfill his destiny and become champ, it’s not going to be as Bruce Farnsworth, regardless of the fact that Joe/Farnsworth and Bette have now fallen in love.

A romantic comedy that is blessed with two likable performances from Robert Montgomery and Evelyn Keyes and a great one from Claude Rains, Here Comes Mr. Jordan was nominated for Best Picture of 1941. It lost to How Green Was My Valley. While Here Comes Mr. Jordan really can’t compare to some of the other films that lost (amongst the other nominees were Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon), it’s still a wonderfully charming film that holds up well today. Everyone should be as lucky as to have a guardian who is as charming and urbane as Claude Rains is as Mr. Jordan.

In 1978, Here Comes Mr. Jordan was remade by Warren Beatty, who named his version of the story Heaven Can Wait. That version of the story was also nominated for Best Picture, though it lost to The Deer Hunter.

The 1955 film, The Beast With A Million Eyes, has three credited directors and reportedly, Roger Corman also stepped in and took over the direction as well, even though he received no screen credit. That’s a lot of directors for a relatively simple sci-fi/horror film. Reportedly, the problem with the directors came from the fact that The Beast With A Million Eyes was a non-union production and, after one day of production, the unions threatened to picket the set and basically shut down production unless the entire cast and crew signed up for the guilds. The unions eventually got their members and their money but all of the drama set production so far behind that Roger Corman stepped in, fired award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, and proceeded to finish up the film himself.

As for the film itself, it takes place in the California countryside. Allan Kelly (Paul Birch, who was one of the first guys to get killed in The War of the Worlds and later played the dying alien in Corman’s Not Of This Earth) has no use for modern society and he has moved his family to a ranch in the California desert. His family is not particularly happy about this. His wife, Carol (Lorna Thayer), hates being isolated from the world. Their teenage daughter, Sandy (Dana Cole), is lonely and has a strained relationship with her mother. The only thing that makes Sandy happy is her boyfriend (played by Dick Sargent, who would later take over the role of Darin on Bewitched) and her dog. Perhaps the worst part of living out in the desert is that their handyman is a weirdo known as Him (Leonard Tarver).

Now, I should mention that, when I was growing up, my family moved around a lot. I spent a while living on a few farms that were owned by my aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Even after we finally settled down in Texas, I would still frequently visit their farms. I enjoyed visiting the farms, even though I’m pretty much a city girl at heart. I can say that The Beast With A Million Eyes definitely captured the isolated feel of country life. Watching the film, I could feel the heart of the unforgiving sun. I could feel the feeling of tall grass against my bare legs. And, at times, I could even remember the sound of roosters in the distance and crickets and grasshoppers chanting in the night.

Fortunately, my family was never bothered by aliens while we were on the farm. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the family at the center of The Beast With A Million Eyes. An alien decides to test its invasion plan on the family. First, the animals turn against the family, including the poor family dog. (This is probably not a film to watch if you feel about dogs the way that I feel about cats.) Then, the handyman suddenly turns against the family as well. The alien is taking over the minds of the living beings around, starting with animals and then moving on to humans. Can the family defeat the aliens? And will nature ever be the same?

Hey, I liked The Beast With A Million Eyes! Usually, when the film has a lot of directors, it results in a disjointed mess but The Beast With A Million Eyes actually had an interesting story and a lot of country atmosphere. As opposed to the stereotypically perfect 50s family, the family at the center of The Beast With A Million Eyes is believably dysfunctional but, in the end, they have to come together to save the humanity. I just hope the rest of the world would be willing to do the same.