When professional boxer and amateur pilot Joe Pendleton (Robert Mongtgomery) accidentally plows his airplane into the countryside, he awakes to find himself in Heaven. Discovering that a bungling "collector" (Edward Everett Horton) has plucked him from this mortal coil prematurely, he rushes back to Earth, only to discover that he has already been cremated.
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Called in on the case is Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), the Head of Collections, who places Joe in the recently-deceased body of a millionaire playboy of about his same age. But all is not wine and roses for the newly-minted "Bruce Farnsworth," as he discovers that his new body was only vacant because his wife (Rita Johnson) and her lover (John Emery) murdered him. To top it off, the new love of "Bruce's" life, Bette Logan (Evelyn Keyes), despises him, as the real Bruce recently framed her father for a stock swindle he perpetrated.
Although Joe is quickly able to set the Logan business right, at considerable cost to his company, matters become complicated when Mr. Jordan discovers that he is fated to be the next world champion boxer after all. Hiring his old manager (James Gleason) and beginning a grueling regimen, Joe prepares to take on the boxer who might otherwise be the new champ, all the while trying to win the heart of the fair Better.
Of course, none of this sits well with Mrs. Farnsworth or her lover, and the two resolve to murder "Bruce" once again before there's no more Farnsworth fortune left to steal.
The review of this Movie prepared by James Craver
Joe Pendleton, an up-and-coming boxer, is killed in a plane crash and finds himself up in heaven. A mistake has been made, however: Mr. Jordan, heaven's messenger, finds he took Joe's soul out of his body too soon,right before the crash. His death, we find out, is fifty years too early and must be returned to earth. His physical body having been cremated and not buried, Mr. Jordan gives Joe the option of having his soul placed in a recently dead body. Joe chooses the body of Bruce Farnsworth, a
millionaire who was murdered for his money, and must adjust to a new social set, an unfit body, and money he doesn't know what to do with. He sets out to right all the wrongs of the former Mr. Farnsworth, surprising his
attempted murderers and falling in love with a young woman. When Joe begins pushing Farnsworth's body beyond its limits, training for a boxing "comeback" he gets a visit from Mr. Jordan, and is warned to slow down for
his own good.
The review of this Movie prepared by Sara Embrey
