Heaven Can Wait

The 1978 version of Heaven Can Wait is on Amazon now and the other night while in bed I thought I'd watch a few minutes of it before going to sleep. I watched the whole thing, staying up until after three a.m.

Movies that you liked when you were young age better than ones you didn't. There are movies I saw years after they were released that millions love but, having missed the moment, I could only see as overrated. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, A Christmas Story, and The Big Lebowski would be on my list. (There are many others that I saw at the right time other love that I just thought were bad movies, like Anchorman, American Pie, and all of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies. Tastes differ.)

I won't defend my liking of Heaven Can Wait nor promote it. What was interesting to me about watching it the other night was a memory it prompted, which was of what I always jokingly thought of as my first date.

The movie came out in late June and a woman I knew in college named Leslie had moved to my area of Southeastern Pennsylvania earlier that month from Pittsburgh with her mother, who was a lawyer. I'd told Leslie who, like me, had just finished her freshman year at our rural Ohio college, to give me a call after she'd moved. We weren't great friends and I was surprised when she called. I suggested we have dinner then go to a movie.

I never dated in a conventional sense and still don't think of anything I've done since as dating. I've always called it doing something with a friend, but at times it has been in a first meeting so I have been on real dates even though I don't call them that.

I liked Leslie. Smart and assertive, but quiet, a thinker. She had broad shoulders which made her seem larger than she was but I doubt she was over five-seven and she probably didn't weight over one hundred and thirty pounds. (Everyone then was much thinner than they are now. Leslie, like me, had an average physic.)

We went to a restaurant in Bryn Mawr that young people like. It was known for serving hamburgers as if they were an entree. They were large, came in many varieties, the buns were fresh, and they cost over five dollars, an absurdly high price for a hamburger at that time. As we ate, I realized that during my fussing over clothes for my "date," which meant for me that I wore a striped shirt, I'd forgotten to bring my wallet, a thing I rarely do. Leslie had cash and paid. (College students then never had credit cards. For those you needed a job and you could forget about getting an American Express card unless you owned the place you lived in.)

After dinner, we went to the movie, which I'd seen before. Leslie seemed to like it well enough. I never talk during movies. Part of that is because I was a film snob then. Another part of that is that it's bad manners. During one of the football scenes in it, Leslie leaned closer to me and said of Warren Beatty, softly, "He's too short to be a quarterback." I loved that, though I wasn't sure it was true; the average height now of an NFL quarterback now is six-three. Warren Beatty is six-one.

As I drove her home, I stopped by my house to retrieve my wallet. I paid Leslie back everything, not just my part, while saying good night in her driveway. (Later, I wondered how that would have looked to someone observing us.) We didn't hug, which was common then among people who were platonic friends. Kissing was never in my mind. It would have been my first time. (I didn't kiss anyone until over a year later.) We didn't see each other again that summer. Not that we didn't have a good enough time, we just weren't on that path. I think Leslie married, had children, and lives in this area even now, but I'm not sure. I don't think she became a lawyer.

I know I said I wouldn't try to sell you on Heaven Can Wait, but if you ever want to see two actors make great eye contact in a movie, Warren Beatty and Julie Christie are about the best examples of that you'll ever find.