On va se faire sonner les cloches

FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, George Seaton's 1950 heavenly comedy, is worth seeing mostly for the very funny performance of Clifton Webb. Webb is the whole show, playing an angel who comes to earth to help overly busy couple Robert Cummings and Joan Bennett have a baby.

Cummings and Bennett really have very little to do and are mostly wasted, though Joan Blondell has several funny scenes and is her usual breezy, likeable self.

Not a classic heavenly fantasy like HERE COMES MR. JORDAN or IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, but enjoyable and worth seeing for Webb's fine comic performance.

The acid tongued Clifton Webb who earned three Oscar nominations in the Forties, in the Fifties had his image considerably softened and for most of the rest of his career would be doing items like For Heaven's Sake. How much base was applied to this acid for Webb to team with Edmund Gwenn as a pair of angels trying to help some unborn kids make their earthy debuts.

Webb has the tougher assignment. Gigi Perreau's prospective parents are theatrical couple Bob Cummings and Joan Bennett who've become rather jaded and are on the verge of splitting. Against a lot of celestial advice including Gwenn's, Webb decides to materialize and become human. And as his role model, Webb takes on the persona of Gary Cooper as a western millionaire. In fact Webb is shown going into a theater and seeing Coop in a revival of The Westerner. This is just to get some background information as to how to pull off the character.

And he enters the lives of Cummings and Bennett as another kind of angel, a theatrical one. Of course without any money since they don't use any where he's from. But when he does acquire some money, Webb acquires a lot of earthly habits and problems to go along with the pleasures and perks of being corporeal.

Webb and Gwenn who would team up again in Mr. Scoutmaster have a nice easy chemistry that really carries For Heaven's Sake to some really nice heights. I'd also make note of performances by Joan Blondell as an actress playing one a lot like Joan Blondell, Harry Von Zell in a nice caricature of a real Texas oil millionaire and most of all Jack LaRue as an actor who really starts believing he is one of those gangster tough guys he portrays on the screen. I think LaRue took as his model George Raft though God only knows LaRue played plenty of gangsters in his own career.

For Heaven's Sake holds up very nicely after over 60 years and makes nice family viewing.

For those of you who haven't been able to find FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE and want to, look no further than the Fox Movie Channel -- the movie's on FMC as I type this! The movie itself is an odd but amiable comedy starring Clifton Webb as an angel going incognito as a rancher (Clifton Webb as an urbane, persnickety angel going rustic -- there's a mindbender for you! :-) to help theater folk Robert Cummings and Joan Bennett get over their self-absorption and start a family (feeling dizzy yet? :-). Although its tone is uneven, veering between hilarity and mawkishness, it's still watchable thanks to the great cast, particularly Webb, Edmund Gwenn as a fellow angel, and Gigi Perreau and Tommy Rettig as two kid angels who are growing up in Heaven because their parents-to-be keep putting off starting a family. I found the kid angels' part of the story to be the most touching and intriguing, with its concept of children who are already "old souls" when they're born, so they turn out to be "child prodigies" because they already know so much (Webb has a delightful grouchfest about that). Anyway, if you're a sucker for Clifton Webb and heartwarming dramedies where angels solve people's problems, keep your eye on your cable listings, or if your cable company doesn't carry the Fox Movie Channel, now might be a good time to bug them to pick it up! :-)

When Clifton Webb says this, he is referring to cowboy boots. In this exceptionally peculiar movie, he is an angel. So is Edmund Gwenn. Gigi Perreau and Tommy Rettig are also, though they are angels of a different, rather mawkish, sort.

When Webb utters this comment, he is pretending to be a Texan and an angel of a different sort: a theatrical angel. You see, little Gigi wants to be born as a human child (as does little Tommy.) Gigi has chosen her prospective parents: Robert Cummings and Joan Bennett. (Does this seem to anyone else like an unlikely match?) They are a theatrical couple -- he a director, she a star. They live in a chic Manhattan duplex. Cummings is urbane and Bennett looks luscious.

There are in-jokes about pets named Alfred and Lynn and tossed-off comments about Arlene and Martin. It has a swanky style.

Webb is saddled (no pun intended) with a highly unflattering hair style when he plays the Texas millionaire. He gets top billing but for the most part his considerable talents are wasted. OH! And he falls for the as always delightful, here tanned and rather plump Joan Blondell. She is playing a famous playwright.

The combination of the cynical story of the selfish theatrical people with the icky concept of angels waiting to be born as children makes for a fascinatingly strange concoction.

Angels Clifton Webb and Edmund Gwenn are tasked with bringing an unborn (not even conceived yet!) child into the world by getting a theatrical couple (Robert Cummings, Joan Bennett) with a rocky marriage to have a baby. Webb hatches a plan to take human form in order to better accomplish this task. But life as a human proves to be a distraction for him and Gwenn has to intervene.

Webb is the star of the show, particularly as a Gary Cooper-inspired cowboy character. If you're a fan of Webb's you have to see this. Cummings and Bennett are fine, if a bit dull. Gwenn is likable as ever. Joan Blondell adds her usual brand of zing to things. Gigi Perreau is cute playing the would-be daughter and Tommy Rettig from Lassie is adorable in a small part. Jack La Rue is fun as an actor who's played one too many gangster parts. Loses momentum midway through but is still enjoyable. Old-fashioned ideas such as having a baby will save a troubled marriage will induce eye rolls for many viewers today, I'm sure. But it's all well-meaning and good-natured. Not for the cynics among us. Sweet, charming, and funny.