Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941)

Considering I’d reviewed Jhuk Gaya Aasmaan last week, and that was based on Here Comes Mr Jordan, it seemed appropriate to follow up that review with this one. I hadn’t heard of Here Comes Mr Jordan before, though I have seen a later film (Ernest Lubitsch’s Heaven Can Wait) which was based on the same story—and which, interestingly, retained the name of the original story. Heaven Can Wait, as it turned out, is quite different from Here Comes Mr Jordan.

This story begins by introducing us to prizefighter Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery) as he trains somewhere out in the country while his manager and good friend Max Corkle (James Gleason) looks on. Joe is in fine form and is looking forward to an upcoming fight which can get him within arm’s reach of the world championship.

Pendleton and Max, after the sparring

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Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Fellow blogger and Cary Grant fan Sabrina Mathew’s sometime-ago link to this stunning slideshow of the actor made me take a silent vow to do a Grant post soon. It’s taken a while, mainly because I wasn’t able to make up my mind whether I wanted to review Arsenic and Old Lace, Charade, or Operation Petticoat—all classic Grant comedies—but the wait’s finally over. I’ll do Operation Petticoat and Charade later; for now it’s this hilarious, sometimes slapstick, dark comedy directed by Frank Capra, that I remember as being the first Cary Grant film I ever saw. It also remains one of my favourites—across time, genres, actors, everything.

Cary Grant in Arsenic and Old Lace

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