Don Ameche in Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Vitals
Don Ameche as Henry Van Cleve, successful businessman
New York City, Fall 1923
Film: Heaven Can Wait
Release Date: August 11, 1943
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Costume Designer: René Hubert
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Born 116 years ago today on May 31, 1908, actor Don Ameche stated during a 1983 interview that his favorite filmmaking experience over what was then a half-century in the movies was appearing in Ernst Lubitsch’s dazzling supernatural comedy Heaven Can Wait, adapted by screenwriter Samson Raphaelson from Ladislaus Bus-Fekete’s play “Birthday”.
Ameche portrays Henry Van Cleve, whom we meet in the afterlife after he dies one day after his 70th birthday. Dignified and distinguished but disillusioned about how he lived his life those seventy years, Henry arrives in the netherworld “where innumerable people had told him often to go” to personally petition to the equally dignified “His Excellency” (Laird Cregar), arguing that he indeed belongs in Hell.
Henry then leads us on a retelling of his entire life, beginning with his birth into considerable privilege on October 25, 1872. Borrowing a storytelling device from Bus-Fekete’s play that would again be used in works like David Nicholls’ novel One Day, we track the progress of Henry’s life by checking him on the same day across multiple years—in this case, his birthday—chronicling his adolescence and relationship with his wife, Martha (Gene Tierney), whose affection he drew away from his cousin Albert (Allyn Joslyn).
By the early 1920s, Henry and Martha have raised their son Jack (Tod Andrews) into a young man who seems to be following his father’s footsteps with a penchant for showgirls. When the middle-aged Henry approaches the Follies girl Peggy Nash (Helene Reynolds) before one of her shows, Lubitsch briefly lets us worry that Henry has fallen back into his own old patterns of infidelity… before he reveals that he instead endeavored to meet the young Miss Nash to pay her $10,000 to keep out of Jack’s life. That evening, Martha gently chides Henry for getting involved in their son’s affairs, but Jack later reveals that he’s glad to be rid of the bothersome Peggy. As they retire to bed, Henry shares his insecurities around his aging—and its effects on his waistline—but Martha confirms that seeing how comfortably he has settled into their life together has finally eased her own insecurities as they approach their 24th wedding anniversary.
20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck had insisted on the commercially popular Ameche over Lubitsch’s initial protestations, as the role had been originally intended for Rex Harrison or Fredric March, though the director was soon impressed by Ameche’s professionalism and performance. One of the most bankable and highest-earning stars during the 1940s, Ameche later transitioned to appearing mostly on television and the stage until his big screen resurgence in the ’80s via a comedically villianous role in Trading Places (1983) and his sole Oscar-winning performance in Cocoon (1985).
Photographed in brilliant Technicolor by cinematographer Edward Cronjager, Heaven Can Wait remains Lubitsch’s only completed Technicolor film; the director’s final credit, the 1948 Technicolor musical That Lady in Ermine, was completed by an uncredited Otto Preminger after Lubitsch died one week into the production. Heaven Can Wait received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Director for Lubitsch, Best Cinematography for Cronjager, and Best Picture—which it understandably lost to Casablanca. (Another unrelated film titled Heaven Can Wait would also be nominated for an Oscar more than three decades later in the form of Warren Beatty and Buck Henry’s 1978 adaptation of Here Comes Mr. Jordan.)
What’d He Wear?
Henry dresses for his quiet evening with Martha in a traditional smoking jacket, fashioned from a brilliant dark-blue floral jacquard silk with the requisite shawl collar, turnback cuffs, and frog-style fastening. Developed from the robes-de-chambre that gentlemen adopted as smoking became a more prevalent postprandial activity through the 19th century, smoking jackets were intentionally crafted from fabrics like silk and flannel that would absorb smoke while protecting the wearer’s clothing underneath it.
Henry’s smoking jacket boasts a broad shawl collar and wide turnback cuffs faced in a solid dark-navy matte silk crêpe, coordinating with the dual dark blue tones patterning the body of his jacket. Given their purpose for elegant leisure, smoking jackets ranged from the loose unstructured comfort of robes to the more tailored refinement associated with dinner jackets and evening-wear; Henry’s ventless smoking jacket aligns with the latter with its straight shoulders and roped sleeveheads.
The jacket has straight hip pockets detailed with navy silk jetting that matches the collar, cuffs, and front closure. This decorative silk-braided “frog” toggle fastening originated centuries earlier in China during the Song dynasty, and it remains a fixture of traditional Asian garments like women’s cheongsams and men’s mandarin-collar coats.
Henry’s white cotton evening shirt represents the fashions of early 20th century formalwear, characterized by a stiff detachable collar and heavily starched bib and single cuffs. These shirts were known as “boiled shirts” as they were designed with any parts that showed to be so heavily starched that they needed to be placed in boiled water to remove the starch prior to cleaning.
The two front studs with their shining green semi-spheres are purely vestigial, as these old-fashioned dress shirts buttoned up the back and then had the collar attached to the neckband with functional studs through buttonholes on the front and back. Rather than the standing or wing collars often worn with formal evening tailcoats and white ties, Henry wears a turndown club collar—defined by its rounded edges—as gentlemen would also wear with long ties at the time.
Henry’s butterfly/thistle-shaped bow tie is made from a midnight-blue silk to coordinate with the blue tones in the rest of his outfit.
Henry wears a dark-blue waistcoat with a fancy tonal jacquard silk pattern, echoing the spirit of his smoking jacket but with a slightly different pattern against a darker blue ground. The single-breasted waistcoat has a V-shaped neckline that tapers to four covered buttons at the waist and has four welted pockets.
Henry wears the same dark midnight-blue evening trousers prescribed for the formal “white tie” dress code, characterized by the double silk-braided galon down each side seam. These flat-front trousers have side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms, which break over the tops of his black patent leather shoes.
The gold pinky ring on Henry’s right hand has a shining blue stone. His only other accessory are his tortoise-framed pince-nez, the old-fashioned eyeglasses consisting solely of two round lenses connected by a bridge and held in place by pinching the nose—as “pincer nez” is literally French for “to pinch the nose”. Like many pince-nez wearers during this style’s heyday around the turn of the 20th century, Henry keeps his attached to a cord that he wears around his neck.
How to Get the Look
Don Ameche in Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Henry Van Cleve’s silk smoking jacket, stiff collar and boiled shirt, and pince-nez was already mostly outmoded by the roaring ’20s setting of this scene in Heaven Can Wait, let alone a century later, as Don Ameche models an elegant example of tailored leisure-wear from a bygone era.
- Dark-blue floral jacquard silk dinner jacket with broad navy silk crêpe shawl collar, single silk-braided frog-style toggle fastening, straight jetted hip pockets, navy silk crêpe turnback cuffs, and ventless back
- White cotton dress shirt with stiff detachable club collar, starched bib (with two green studs), and single cuffs
- Midnight-blue silk butterfly/thistle-shaped bow tie
- Dark-blue jacquard silk single-breasted 4-button waistcoat with four welted pockets
- Midnight-blue wool formal flat-front trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
- Black patent leather shoes
- Gold pinky ring with blue stone
- Tortoise-framed pince-nez eyeglasses on neck-cord
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
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