Clifton Webb was always popular with moviegoers, starting with his scene-stealing (sound movie) debut as Waldo Lydecker in Laura (1944). But in 1948, thanks to a little comedy called Sitting Pretty (1948) in which he played a middle-aged babysitter, Webb suddenly became a comedic star and major box-office draw. A sequel, Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949), cemented his drawing power, and for the next several years Twentieth Century Fox capitalized on its unlikely leading man with a series of extremely profitable comedies, one of which was For Heaven's Sake (1950).

As film historian Jeanine Basinger has pointed out in her book The Star Machine, Webb's comedy characters are basically just like his Waldo Lydecker persona, acerbic and witty, but without the "evil villain" component. In the fantasy-comedy For Heaven's Sake, Webb plays a celestial being who watches over children waiting to be born. When one couple (Robert Cummings and Joan Bennett), a theater director and actress, prove too busy to have their baby, Webb and a fellow angel (Edmund Gwenn) come to Earth to prod the couple along. Webb disguises himself as a fellow named Slim, modeled after Gary Cooper -- and Cooper's haircut from The Westerner (1940)!

In a Fox press release, Webb channeled his screen persona in describing his role: "I come down from heaven and attempt to get a little boy born to a certain couple. I bring the little boy with me. I always have children in my pictures because, I'm certain, it's punishment for having lived so long as a bachelor. Anyway, I have this little boy with me and he's the kind of a lad that if I weren't an angel, I might use a slight bit of force on him."

Another press release explained that Webb and Gwenn were dressed entirely in gray because Fox executives decided that's how angels dress, and that they "never were permitted to sit down between scenes" since the studio deemed that angels should never have sharp creases in their trousers. On the other hand, another document claimed that two sets of furniture were constructed for scenes in which the angels do in fact sit down: one for mere mortal characters and the other for the angels made of concrete so that their mass-less bodies would not sink down into the material.

The director George Seaton and writer Harry Segall were both drawn to light supernatural stories in their careers. Seaton had directed Miracle on 34th Street (1947), also starring Gwenn, and had written the fantasy play on which The Cockeyed Miracle (1946) was based. Segall wrote the play Heaven Can Wait, which was the basis for Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) and Down to Earth (1947), and also wrote the screenplay for Angel on My Shoulder (1946).

Reviews were mostly positive, but not everyone was on board. The New Yorker declared: "For Heaven's Sake is an egregious little confection that recounts how a couple of angels come down to earth to persuade a couple of theatrical people to procreate. This is done so an unborn child -- ambling around in a kind of never-never land -- can get on solid ground and know all the pleasures real little boys and girls enjoy. Sickening enough?"

For Heaven's Sake marked 43-year-old Joan Blondell's first movie appearance in over three years, after a failed marriage in the interim to Broadway producer Michael Todd.

Producer: William Perlberg
Director: George Seaton
Screenplay: George Seaton; Dorothy Segall, Harry Segall (play)
Cinematography: Lloyd Ahern
Art Direction: Richard Irvine, Lyle Wheeler
Music: Alfred Newman
Film Editing: Robert Simpson
Cast: Clifton Webb (Charles/Slim Charles), Joan Bennett (Lydia Bolton), Robert Cummings (Jeff Bolton), Edmund Gwenn (Arthur), Joan Blondell (Daphne Peters), Gigi Perreau (Item), Jack La Rue (Tony Clark), Harry von Zell (Tex Henry), Tommy Rettig (Joe Blake).
BW-92m.

by Jeremy Arnold