Ernst Lubitsch tribute at LACMA

I can’t help but think that the lovely fun of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1943 “Heaven Can Wait” was colored by the massive heart attack that nearly felled him when he was finishing the film. It was the director’s first go at color, and he’s careful with its use. Don Ameche is absolutely charming as the dapper, devious businessman who finds himself knocking on Hades door with Satan not at all convinced he should let him in. It’s a clever comic contemplation of morality and mortality that soon becomes a treatise on love and life. Gene Tierney is luminous as his beloved wife, Martha — not the only woman in his life but the only one who mattered. It’s the first half of Saturday night’s double bill at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with the prescient “Cluny Brown” — starring Jennifer Jones as a plumbing apprentice better at plumbing hearts than sinks — closing the night. All in all, a fantastic way to wrap LACMA’s tribute to this early king of comedy and make some big-screen memories of your own.

— Betsy Sharkey