The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, June 15-21
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
A well-to-do ladies’ man (Don Ameche), having shuffled off this mortal coil, recounts his life story for the guy downstairs, expecting damnation for his long life of dissolution—“one continuous misdemeanor.” This being a Lubitsch film, he doesn’t really have much to worry about—no other director brewed so much laughter from sympathy for human weakness—but it’s part of his charm that he does anyway. Setting aside his usual corkscrew plotting to survey a life from start to finish, Lubitsch finds in the procession of life milestones one showcase after another for the graceful economy of his expression. Eli Goldfarb (June 17-23 at Film Forum, showtimes daily)