For all it's reportedly Steven Spielberg's favourite Hollywood movie, I found it rather awkward to watch and enjoy. I admire Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne and found them an agreeably spiky couple for the first half hour of the film evoking memories of Cary Grant and Jean Arthur in "Only Angels Have Wings" but from that gritty introduction to the main characters, the film then "goes Capra" and into a strange fantasy with Tracy winding up in heaven after a bombing mission goes wrong and then getting the job, Clarence-style of chaperoning young buck Van Johnston to fly in his slipstream, not only as a daring pilot but also, eventually overcoming his inbuilt jealous reluctance, to supersede his own place in Dunne's grieving heart.
Now I love fantasy films of this ilk, "A Matter Of Life And Death" and "It's A Wonderful Life" prominent amongst them, but here the narrative is just too fantastical and sentimental especially the coincidence of Dunne falling for Johnston, (she looks old enough to be his mother), Tracy getting the job of being Johnston's guardian angel and the ridiculous ending where Dunne carries out Johnson's so-called suicide mission, under Tracy's spectral, but watchful gaze and tutelage and of course defies death in the process.
These scenes and more turn the credible into the incredible and even solid acting from the leads and exciting air-sequences couldn't convince me that this belongs in the pantheon of Golden Age Hollywood classics.
Sorry Mr Spielberg...
Now I love fantasy films of this ilk, "A Matter Of Life And Death" and "It's A Wonderful Life" prominent amongst them, but here the narrative is just too fantastical and sentimental especially the coincidence of Dunne falling for Johnston, (she looks old enough to be his mother), Tracy getting the job of being Johnston's guardian angel and the ridiculous ending where Dunne carries out Johnson's so-called suicide mission, under Tracy's spectral, but watchful gaze and tutelage and of course defies death in the process.
These scenes and more turn the credible into the incredible and even solid acting from the leads and exciting air-sequences couldn't convince me that this belongs in the pantheon of Golden Age Hollywood classics.
Sorry Mr Spielberg...