The New Pictures, Aug. 25, 1941

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Columbia). There is hell to pay when Celestial Messenger No. 7013 (Edward Everett Horton) returns to heaven with the soul of a prize fighter (Robert Montgomery) snatched from his private plane before it crashed to earth in “a place called New Jersey.” No. 7013, a green and sentimental hand, wanted to spare the fighter the pain of crashing. But The Book says that the fighter is scheduled to live for 50 more years, meantime becoming world’s heavyweight champion. He would have survived the crash; he must be returned to his earthly body.

That would have been duck soup for No. 7013 if the fighter’s manager (James Gleason) had not taken his boy’s body from the plane wreckage and had it cremated. Only answer to that, inasmuch as he refuses to go through the trouble of being born over again, is to find him another body.

With Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), a sort of Angel Gabriel, the fighter sets out to choose his new body from a list of worldlings who are about to die. During the search he falls in love with a girl (Evelyn Keyes) whose father has been wronged by a young, polo-playing millionaire. This persuades him to take the body of the millionaire, who has just been drowned in a bathtub by his wife (Rita Johnson) and his secretary (John Emery).

How the fighter, whom the world accepts as the millionaire, convinces his manager, who so wrongly had him cremated, that he is really his boy come back in another man’s body to win the heavyweight championship is wondrously funny. So is Gleason’s awkward attempt to converse with Mr. Jordan, whom he can neither see nor hear. How the fighter finally wins his girl, despite the handicap of having to leave the millionaire’s body and take another one before becoming champion, is truly moving.

Mr. Jordan is not a perfectly conceived fantasy. At times it sacrifices credulity and its own premises for the sake of the plot. But it is so filled with good things that all concerned can take a bow for fashioning one of the most singular and comic comedies ever to come out of Hollywood. It molds farce and fantasy into a story that is not only witty but wise. A directorial triumph for Alexander Hall, it is a springboard for two practically perfect performances by Actors Montgomery and Gleason.

It is thanks to the stubbornness of Producer Everett Riskin that Mr. Jordan was made at all. When Harry Segall applied for a Columbia job some three years ago, his play (titled Heaven Can Wait) was his best recommendation. Producer Riskin read it, hired the author, badgered Columbia for a year and a half to let him make it. When his contract ran out, he refused to re-sign until the studio gave him a green light for Mr. Jordan.

Hold That Ghost (Universal) is about that haunted house Universal has been making and remaking these many years. It is not much of a house, but Abbott & Costello are in it and that makes it funny. They inherit it from a murdered gangster, refuse to be frightened out of it by the ectoplasmic machinations of their donor’s mob, hold on until they hit the jackpot: the dead gangster’s fortune cached in a moosehead. This feeble chronicle is considerably enhanced by such sure-fire episodes as greaseball Lou Costello climbing in bed with a ghost.

Hold That Ghost might have been funnier if it had been made under happier circumstances. A $160,000 quickie, designed to follow Abbott & Costello’s first starring cinemadventure, Buck Privates, it was withdrawn from the market when Universal saw its low-cost predecessor heading for a completely unexpected $1,000,000 gross. Shelved while the wacky pair of former burlesque comedians made Abbott and Costello and Dick Powell in the Navy (now well on its way to a $1,500,000 gross), it was then refurbished. The result is inevitably hodgy-podgy but not wanting in low-life laughs.

When Universal signed Abbott & Costello a year ago, it was feeling no pain for the first time in ten years. After eight lean years of losses averaging $1,000,000 annually, it had pulled a $1,153,321 profit out of the Hollywood pot in 1939, was on its way to a $2,390,772 net for 1940. This turnabout was the result of a reorganization which, in 1938, put Nate J. Blumberg, hitherto an exhibitor, in as studio president with a brand-new executive staff. It was also a tribute to the box-office oomph of Universal’s ace breadwinner, dimply Deanna Durbin, whose nine pictures (a tenth coming up) since 1936 have come close to bridging the gap between bankruptcy and profits.

Last month Universal paid a $2 dividend (first in nine years) on its first preferred stock, which is $68 in arrears. It was not much of a dividend ($21,478), but it was a good sign for the studio’s stockholders. In the 13 weeks ending May 3 the company announced a $1,056,000 profit—first time its quarterly earnings had ever passed $1,000,000. Anticipated 1941 profit: $3,000,000.

How much Abbott & Costello have had to do with Universal’s present affluence is a studio secret. But the pair of zanies recently got a $50,000 bonus for signing their new contract. They have finished another picture, Ride ‘Em Cowboy, have two more on the fire.

Their role as Universal’s ten-strike is a new one for Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Four years ago their barrage of slapstick and old-style fast talk was earning them $150 a week in burlesque. They had teamed up in 1932 after Costello had fled his Hollywood stunt-man job and Abbott had gone broke trying to run a string of burlesque houses. A guest appearance on Kate Smith’s radio show in 1938 developed into a two-and-a-half year stay and a shot at the movies.

Unlike some cinemactors who accept their good fortune with a smugness suggesting that it was long overdue anyhow, Abbott & Costello are overjoyed at what has happened to them. As for their work, the old-school comics insist that what was good enough for grandfather is good enough for today’s cinemaudience. Universal’s bank account says they are right.

New Wine (Gloria Pictures; United Artists) is not about wine, either new or old. It is the film story of an apocryphal interlude in the short life of Franz Schubert, world’s most prolific composer of Grade A music. He averaged better than one song for every week of his adult life.

Although Schubert was a short, dumpy, shuffling little man, Alan Curtis plays him as a trim, handsome, curly-haired lad with a nose for conviviality and an eye for a pretty woman (Ilona Massey). They meet on the Hungarian sheep ranch she manages for a dizzy countess. They part when she decides that it will be best for his music if he goes it alone.

No less than ten Schubert compositions, including the B Minor and C Major symphonies and the Ave Maria (sung by the famed St. Luke’s Choristers), resound impressively from the sound track. Sauterne-blond Ilona Massey warbles three Schubert songs through the slow-moving picture. Before shooting was completed last spring, she did what she was kept from doing in the picture—married Actor Curtis.