--- title: "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" year: 1941 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan" fi1m_score: 77 critics_score: 78 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-20T00:29:44.405639+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T00:30:07.128148+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) Directed by Alexander Hall · 1h 34m · MPA NR · Comedy, Fantasy, Romance **Fi1m score: 77** · Critics 78 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* Heaven turns out to be an airport in fog, staffed by apologetic clerks, and we found that oddly reassuring > Alexander Hall’s comedy imagines death as a clerical error and heaven as a well-run office, and Claude Rains makes the man in charge so courteous you would trust him with your soul. It is quick, kind and thin where its lovers should be. ## Synopsis Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery), a prizefighter who plays the saxophone and flies his own plane, is on his way to New York for a bout when the plane goes down. Before it hits the ground an over-eager heavenly messenger, 7013 (Edward Everett Horton), lifts his soul clear. At a waystation where the dead queue for a flight, Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains) checks the ledger: Joe was not due for another fifty years. But his manager Max Corkle (James Gleason) has had the body cremated. Jordan must find Joe another one, and settles on Bruce Farnsworth, a crooked financier whose wife Julia (Rita Johnson) and secretary Tony Abbott (John Emery) have drowned him in his bath. Joe agrees for the sake of Bette Logan (Evelyn Keyes), whose father Farnsworth has ruined. ## Review Here is a film that treats death as a clerical matter. Joe Pendleton, a boxer with a saxophone and a pilot’s licence, is lifted out of his crashing plane a moment too soon by a nervous heavenly messenger, and the rest of the picture is the paperwork. Alexander Hall’s comedy, from a script by Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller adapted from Harry Segall’s stage play, runs 94 minutes, and most of them are a pleasure. It is kindly, quick and beautifully cast in its supporting parts, and it is thinner in its romance and its lead than its reputation lets on. We recommend it, with those two caveats. Joseph Walker shoots heaven as a fogbank with an airliner parked in it. There is no horizon, no wall, no floor you can see; the newly dead stand about in overcoats in a soft white glare and wait to board as though at an aerodrome with a delayed departure. It is cheaper than a staircase of clouds and it works better. Back on earth Walker gives the Farnsworth mansion the deep polish of a bank lobby, and Edith Head puts Rita Johnson’s Julia in gowns that gleam like the furniture. Friedrich Hollaender’s score is light and does not insist. Viola Lawrence cuts briskly; scenes end the moment they have made their joke. Claude Rains is the reason the film has lasted. Mr. Jordan runs the afterlife, and Rains plays him not as an angel but as the most courteous official you have ever met: unhurried, faintly amused, never once raising his voice, and entirely certain that everything will be put right in the end. He dresses like a bank manager and behaves like one. When he tells Joe that death is nothing to be frightened of, he says it the way a good doctor tells you a tooth will not hurt, and we found ourselves believing him. Not many comedies manage that. The laughs come from below. Edward Everett Horton’s Messenger 7013 is a fussing, wounded bureaucrat who has made one mistake in a very long career and cannot stop apologising for it. James Gleason’s Max Corkle, the manager who has cremated his own fighter, is asked to accept that the millionaire in front of him is Joe, and then to hold conversations with an armchair in which Mr. Jordan is invisibly sitting. Gleason plays every stage of this, disbelief, panic, drink and finally a sort of exhausted belief, without once winking at us. The scene in which Joe proves who he is by playing the saxophone is the funniest in the picture, and it works because Gleason listens to it like a man hearing a ghost. We laughed out loud, more than once. Robert Montgomery is the difficulty. Hall’s best decision is that we see Montgomery throughout while everyone on screen sees Farnsworth; the whole joke depends on it. But Montgomery’s Joe is a soft-spoken, well-tailored man doing a Brooklyn accent, and the accent never settles. His catchphrase, “I’m in the pink”, is repeated until it stops being character and becomes a tic. Evelyn Keyes’s Bette Logan has less still: she is good, and worried, and grateful, and the script has no other notes for her. The romance is a matter of two people being told by Mr. Jordan that they belong together, and the film takes his word for it. So did we, mostly, but we noticed we were doing it. The rules of the afterlife are also explained at length, and then explained again. Buchman and Miller are so anxious that nobody be confused that Jordan sets out the terms of the body swap three or four times, and the second half, which we will not describe, adds complications that need explaining all over again. Rita Johnson and John Emery, as the murderous wife and the secretary, are left to skulk in doorways while this goes on, and Donald MacBride’s Inspector Williams arrives late to be baffled on our behalf. The film has been remade twice and imitated far more often, and most of its children are softer than it is. Here the dead are pushed about by clerks, a wife murders her husband in the first reel, and nobody upstairs seems especially bothered about any of it. That dryness is what keeps the sweetness from cloying. Watch it on a wet afternoon with someone who does not mind a slow start; it is over before the tea goes cold. *Fi1m score 77, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like this one, and they like it for the same reason: the cast. Claude Rains as the celestial Mr. Jordan draws the warmest notices, with James Gleason and Edward Everett Horton close behind, and several reviews note that the supporting players get the biggest laughs. The premise, a boxer taken to heaven by mistake and sent back in another body, is judged sturdy enough to carry a comic fantasy, and Alexander Hall’s brisk direction is credited with keeping it moving. The reservations cluster around the romance. Empire finds the love story saccharine and contrived, and Slant Magazine argues the body-switch device pushes the film towards something milder and more conventional than its sardonic opening promises. The AV Club thinks the lead casting is not quite right. The only mixed review, from Time Out, finds the comedy tinged with fey archness. The spread is narrow, with no negative notices, and the 1941 reviews are the most enthusiastic. ### Reviews we read (8) - **The New Yorker**, Russell Maloney (85/100, inferred): The critic finds it one of the brightest comedies of the year despite some fantastical plot flaws, lauding the cast and especially Claude Rains as Mr. Jordan. Montgomery, Gleason, and Horton are also highlighted for their contributions to the heavenly mix-up tale. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1941/08/16/1941-08-16-052-tny-cards-000008790) - **The New York Times**, T.S. (85/100, inferred): The review calls the film gay, witty, tender and wise, deeming it one of the choicest comic fantasies of the year. It singles out the clever script and performances by Robert Montgomery, James Gleason, and Claude Rains for keeping the comedy grounded in character. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1941/08/08/archives/here-comes-mr-jordan-in-which-robert-montgomery-appears-opens-at.html) - **The AV Club**, Mike D'Angelo (B+): The critic praises the film's reassuring comic fantasy and Claude Rains' sublime paternal performance as Mr. Jordan. The sturdy premise delivers laughs, especially from supporting players like James Gleason, though the lead casting is imperfect. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/neither-warren-beatty-nor-chris-rock-could-improve-upon-1798188078) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's humorous take on reincarnation and the strong ensemble performances, especially Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes, James Gleason, and Claude Rains. Direction by Alexander Hall keeps the pace lively throughout. [Read](https://variety.com/1940/film/reviews/here-comes-mr-jordan-1117791611/) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (75/100, inferred): The critic praises the brisk direction by Alexander Hall and the exceptional supporting performances, especially from James Gleason, Claude Rains and Edward Everett Horton. The romantic subplot is noted as occasionally saccharine and contrived. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/comes-mr-jordan-review/) - **Slant Magazine**, Clayton Dillard (75/100, inferred): The review highlights the film's sardonic treatment of death and its fantasy rules but notes the body-switch device leads to a milder, more conventional love story. The Criterion Blu-ray restoration is praised for its sharp image and solid extras. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/here-comes-mr-jordan/) - **Time Out**, TM (60/100, inferred): Mildly engaging fantasy about a boxer sent to heaven by mistake and returned to earth with a guardian angel. Praises the supporting performances but finds the comedy tinged with fey archness. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/here-comes-mr-jordan) - **The Skinny**, Ross McIndoe (★★★★): The critic praises the film's charming body-swap comedy premise and the way it laboriously explains its rules while delivering an elegant, understated style reminiscent of later classics like It's a Wonderful Life. They single out the broad performances, especially Claude Rains' ethereal composure as the celestial being. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/dvd-reviews/here-comes-mr-jordan) ## Details - **Director:** Alexander Hall - **Director:** Alexander Hall - **Screenplay:** Sidney Buchman, Seton I. Miller - **Cinematography:** Joseph Walker - **Editor:** Viola Lawrence - **Music:** Friedrich Hollaender - **Costume design:** Edith Head - **Producer:** Everett Riskin - **Cast:** Robert Montgomery as Joe Pendleton; Evelyn Keyes as Bette Logan; Claude Rains as Mr. Jordan; Rita Johnson as Julia Farnsworth; Edward Everett Horton as Messenger 7013; James Gleason as Max Corkle; John Emery as Tony Abbott; Donald MacBride as Inspector Williams - **Runtime:** 1h 34m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 7 August 1941 - **Genres:** Comedy, Fantasy, Romance ## Where to watch in the US - The Roku Channel: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, BE, BG, BR, CA, DE, ES, FR, GB, HR, IE, LT, NL, NZ, PT, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1942: Best Actor (nominated); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated); Best Story (won); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (won) ## If you liked this - *Heaven Can Wait* (1978): The remake, with Warren Beatty and a football; gentler, sunnier, and still funny. - *A Matter of Life and Death* (1946), Fi1m 92: Powell and Pressburger’s afterlife has an escalator and a trial, and colour on earth. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-matter-of-life-and-death.md) - *After Life* (1998): Kore-eda’s dead choose one memory to keep; the clerks are just as harried. - *Defending Your Life* (1991): Albert Brooks makes the afterlife a hotel with a courtroom attached; drier than it sounds. - *Topper* (1937): Ghosts torment a banker; the same decade, the same brisk cheek about death. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan