Heaven Can Wait is not up to [Lubitsch's] best. Nothing has been, for nearly twenty years. Its real matrix, for that matter, is the sort of smirking, "civilized," Central European puff paste with which the Theater Guild used to claim to bring vitality to the American stage. But it looks like a jewel against the wood-silk and cellophane which passes for a moving picture now that Hollywood has come of age.
James Agee
September 4, 1943