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.