A quietly fantastic story about a bourgeois philanderer who, after his death, presents himself at the gates of hell (where he had so often been advised to go during his lifetime), Heaven Can Wait was Lubitsch's first color film and, as might be expected, his was an ingeniously elegant and witty use of the new medium. Critic Richard Corliss called Heaven Can Wait “the climax and elegy” of the talking comedy. “With this film the miraculous occurred, a Hollywood Satan could be as suave as a Shavian one; a charming philanderer could be sent to heaven; Don Ameche and Gene Tierney could give lovely performances. And, if the sheer verbal brilliance of Trouble in Paradise is primarily a writer's achievement, then Heaven Can Wait's serene death scene stands as the apotheosis of a movie moment that melds the collaborative efforts of writer and director, actor and role, aura and era.”