the corpse hunters
by Douglas Messerli
Sidney Buchman and
Seton I. Miller (screenplay, based on the stage play by Harry Segall),
Alexander Hall (director) Here Comes Mr. Jordan / 1941
Alexander Hall’s 1941 film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, begins with one
of the oddest plot connivances of all time: the film’s hero, boxer Joe
Pendleton (Robert Montgomery) dies in the crash of a small plane he is flying.
Told he is dead by angelic Messenger 7013 (Edward Everett Horton), Joe refuses
to believe him, particularly since he still has his lucky saxophone in hand, demanding
that he been taken to the man in charge, which happens to be Mr. Jordan (Claude
Rains), an oddly dressed manager of what the removal of souls to heaven via
what appears to be a normal 1940s air-liner.
When Joe refuses to board, Jordan checks things out, only to discover that the Messenger has intruded, removing Joe’s soul before his actual death, discovering that in the book of fate Joe is evidently scheduled to live 50 years further into time. What to do?
Return to the body, of course, and put
Joe back into it. Not so quick! When the
small hunting party returns to the site of the crash they find that the body
has already been removed and, soon after, we discover, cremated by Joe’s boxing
manager, “Pop” Corkle (James Gleason). How Corkle has already discovered the
news of Joe’s accident and whisked his body away so quickly is never explained.
But that somewhat absurd plot wrinkle requires that Joe, the Messenger, and
Jordan immediately go on the search for a new body that might fit Joe’s soul.
Having worked hard to bring his
body into such good shape, however, Joe is terribly picky, refusing 100s of the
corpses they’ve already offered up before the trio shows up on the doorstep of
the wealthy, crooked banker and investor, Bruce Farnsworth, about to be drowned
in his bathtub by his wife Julia (Rita Johnson) and Farnworth’s secretary Tony
Abbott (John Emery).
So these supposedly heavenly messengers
slip Joe into his body, startling the two would-be murderers and saving the day
for Bette Logan (Evelyn Keyes) who, soon after, shows up to demand that
Farnsworth return the money he has swindled from her innocent father.
By this time the plot is so luridly
whacky that the fantastical tale has surely caught our attention if nothing
else. In Hall’s version, even if the murderers are astonished they remain,
nonetheless, in the story’s background, as Joe, now Farnsworth, quickly moves
forward behind the scenes, righting all the evils Farnsworth has committed and
attending to his new physique, which requires he bring back his trainer and
prove to him who he “really” is by blowing a few sour notes upon his sax.
In
Warren Beatty’s 1978 remake—one of the many Hollywood makeovers through the
years—the giddy acting of the guilty couple, deliciously played by Dyan Cannon
and Charles Grodin, helps to detract from the ridiculous story of corpse-hunting,
shifting our attention, at least for a while, to their over-the-top hysteria. In
Hall’s version we hardly get a chance to blink before Joe is told he’s going to
have to change bodies yet again since the wife and secretary are about to make
another go-round in Farnworth’s murder, which, after all, Jordan reminds us,
was destined in the first place!
Joe just has time to look into Bette Logan’s
and eyes and warn her that should remember his deep gaze just in case she might
later run into a boxer who doesn’t look like he does now.
Off he flies to be refitted into
another new corpse, that of his boxer friend, Murdoch, who has just been shot
in the middle of a match by crooked gamblers who had demanded he throw the
fight. Evidently, Murdoch’s death, quite inexplicable, was not destined, for
Joe, now in Murdoch’s body, slowing rises and wins the match, firing Murdoch’s
equally crooked trainer, and taking on, once more, McCorkle, who having spotted
Joe’s golden saxophone at ringside, has already hurried off to the site of
match.
This time, Joe’s memory is wiped clean by
the inconsistent Mr. Jordan, and, accordingly, doesn’t recognize Bette Logan,
who also mysteriously shows up in the dark halls of boxing locker rooms. But it
doesn’t matter, since both Joe, now Murdoch, and Bette seem to recognize
something in each other’s eyes, as if—so they toss out their banal metaphors—they
had met before, deciding to discuss it over dinner. At least Joe has a boxer’s
body which he can now inhabit for the next 49 years or so! And will probably
have dozens of kids with Bette. Jordan send him away with the salutatory “Goodbye,
Champ!”
In short, the 1938 Harry Segall play, as
rewritten by Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller makes about as much sense as a
Feydeau farce and, in its spiritually-approved shifting of corpses, even
borders on the macabre. Montgomery suffers the trials and tribulations of
reincarnation with bland impatience, while the producer’s original choice for
the lead actor, Cary Grant, might have played it with a far better with series
of flummoxed comic gestures; certainly we might find the shifting of bodies,
given Grant’s graceful exterior, a far greater curse.
But in the end, none of this truly
matters since everything has been put into Rains’, Horton’s, and Gleason’s
affable and capable hands. Given Rains’ suave elocutions and friendly, is
slightly ironic smiles, Horton’s blundering comic confusions, and Gleason’s grumpy
loyalty to his friend, we know that no matter where this corpse-robbing voyage
make take us, we’ll have some fun along the way before being brought safely
home again.
Yet given the abuse of all those dead
bodies along the way, we might all what think about joining the Neptune Society
(which assures its members of prepaid cremations) to be sure our bodies are not
used, as Mr. Jordan describes them, simply as “outer cloaks”—unless you’re
convinced that you may have to return to your own skin again.
Los Angeles, December 13, 2015
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