“Here Comes Mr. Jordan”: Kabbalah in Old Hollywood

Some reflections theological and literary.

Christmas season brings on the old Christmas movies, most of which are also “angel” movies. Hollywood used to make a lot of angel movies. Now, not so many.

My wife’s favorite angel movie is It’s A Wonderful Life, from 1946, in which the angel Clarence proves to the suicidal banker George Bailey that George’s life is worthwhile despite his current plague of catastrophes.

My own favorite is the original Here Comes Mr. Jordan, from 1941, starring Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes, and Claude Rains. This is not a Christmas movie, possibly because it is so rooted in Jewish mysticism.

For readers who have not yet seen the movie, here is the story. (Eighty-three years is plenty of time to see a movie. Anyway, you can stream it from Amazon for $3.59):

Spoiler Alert:

Pro boxer Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery) is piloting his own plane back to New York for a big fight when his plane crashes. A rookie angel (Edward Everett Horton) mistakenly assumes that the crash will kill Joe and snatches his soul out of his body prematurely. Before the angel and his boss Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains) can restore Joe’s soul to his body, Joe’s distraught manager Corky (James Gleason) has cremated the body. Now Joe has a soul but no body in which to clothe it.

Mr. Jordan provides a temporary new body in the form of Farnsworth, a rich crook murdered by his wife and her lover. Most of the remainder of the movie follows Joe in his temporary Farnsworth body while the rookie angel and Mr. Jordan scour the world for a permanent body fit enough to satisfy Joe. Joe is choosy because he had put himself “in the pink” for his upcoming title bout. In the end, Joe wins the title, but in his third body, which belonged to a murdered pro fighter named Murdock.

Who is this Mr. Jordan? The movie provides no explanation. Of course, his name resonates from the old familiar song:

“You got to cross that River Jordan

You got to cross it by yourself…”

Referring to dying, of course. And like most angel movies, this one assumes the existence of an afterlife, or at least some non-material alternate reality through which human souls travel. The movie represents this divine scheme with the visual metaphor of departed souls climbing into a passenger plane waiting to take them to places never identified. (There is no mention of heaven, hell or purgatory.)

Mr. Jordan’s subordinate angel identifies himself as “Messenger 7013.” Joe calls him “that messenger.” Notably, the word translated from the Hebrew Scriptures as “angel” is the word for “messenger” (“mlakh”/מַלְאָך).

Indeed, except for its American slang, the movie sometimes comes off as if written by an 18^th century rabbi and not a team of Hollywood screenwriters, at least in the path its story takes as it traverses certain themes, like predestination and free will, the relation between soul and body, and the nature of love between man and woman.

Predestination vs. Free Will

While in his Farnsworth body, Joe frets that all the body-switching confusion means that his chance to become champion will slip away from him. Not to worry, explains Mr. Jordan:

Mr. Jordan: We have found out...that you are actually intended to be the next World's Champion.

Joe: Is that a fact?

Mr. Jordan: Yes, Joe.

Joe: How do you know?

Mr. Jordan: Nothing can prevent it.

Later, when Mr. Jordan warns Joe that he will have to give up Farnsworth’s body because Farnsworth’s wife and her lover are about to murder him again:

Joe: You told me I was going to be champ.

Mr. Jordan: You will be, but on another road.

Joe: But why not as Farnsworth? I got his body in the pink...

Mr. Jordan: Because it wasn't meant to be that way.

Joe: That's no answer.

Mr. Jordan: On the contrary, it's the perfect answer.

Later, after Joe finally wins the title in the body of a fighter named Murdock, Mr. Jordan explains,

Eventually all things work out.

There's design in everything.

You were meant to be champion. You are.

You and Murdock are one.

You belong to each other.

This is your destiny, Joe.

You're back on your own road.

Joe was predestined to be the champ. Now he is the champ. Predestination has once again prevailed over free will.

But, like life, that is too simple.

After the original cosmic screwup, in which Joe has no agency, every supposedly predestined outcome comes about as the result of Joe’s free choice. Mr. Jordan never forces Joe to accept any proposed new body. In fact, after the second murder forces Joe out of Farnsworth’s body, Joe rejects proposed body after body as insufficiently in the pink.

On his own, Joe chooses first to accept Farnsworth’s body and then the body of Murdock, in which body Joe finally wins his coveted title.

As Rabbi Akiva said two thousand years ago, “All is foreseen, but free will is granted.” Sayings of the Fathers, 19.3.

The Rabbi’s seemingly self-contradictory assertion turns out to be the perfect anticipation for this movie.

And not just this movie. Einstein had thoughts parallel to Rabbi Akiva’s. When a long-time physicist friend died, he wrote this to the friend’s grieving widow: “People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Einstein’s General Relativity is often called the “block universe” theory, according to which the entirety of space-time incorporates past, present and future into one “block.” Whether the block theory precludes free will is subject to debate. See, for example, this philosophical investigation piece.

Like Joe and most of us, Einstein always personally acted as if he believed in his own free will.

2. The Relation Between Soul and Body

When Mr. Jordan offers Joe his first new replacement body, that of the corrupt murder victim Farnsworth, Mr. Jordan tries to assuage Joe’s fears that accepting Farnsworth’s body will mean that he gives up his personal identity:

Mr. Jordan:

…you'd make a very different Farnsworth.
Spiritually, there'd be no change in you.

Joe:

Yeah, but I wouldn't be myself.
A guy's no good if he isn't himself.

Mr. Jordan:

Joe, you'll always be yourself.
You'd merely be using
Farnsworth's physical covering...
like donning a new overcoat…

The repeated overcoat analogy is familiar to anyone who has read even a little Jewish mysticism, according to which the human faculties of thought, speech, and action are considered the "garments" of the soul.

For example, the founder of Chabad, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812) wrote in a book called The Tanya:

“The soul possesses three auxiliary powers, which are its instruments of expression. Like garments, they can be donned or shed at will. When the soul utilizes any of these three powers, it is “clothed” in them; when it does not use them, it is “divested” of them.”

Kabbalistic writings contain a myriad of further examples of the garment terminology, too many to bother quoting here.

In the movie, Mr. Jordan uses the next few lines to expand on the “garment” analogy:

Mr. Jordan:

…inside that coat,
you'd still be Joe Pendleton...
thinking and acting and feeling…

The screenwriters may have muddled the terminology in their translation from “thought, speech and action” on the one hand, to “thinking and acting and feeling” on the other hand, but they were reaching for the same tripartite idea.

One additional thought: in the movie, souls can change bodies. But the kabbalistic doctrine of transmigration of souls after death (also familiar from Hinduism and other religions) is left open. The movie never explains where that airplane is taking its cargo of departed souls, whether to some afterlife of heavenly joy or punishing hell, or to new bodies.

The Nature of Love Between a Man and A Woman

The instant Joe sees and hears Bette Logan (Evelyn Keyes), he falls in love with her. She is his “bashert.”

Bashert is a Yiddish word. It designates anything predestined by God, but more colloquially it means one’s destined soul mate. It is one of those Yiddish words which have crossed over into English, like “bagel” and “schmooze” and “chutzpah.”

Joe’s immediate love for Bette is not just a physical attraction, although that counts too. Joe tells Mr. Jordan:

She's in a tough spot.

Got a lot of courage to come all the way
up here alone to fight for her father.

From that moment, Joe’s love for Bette drives his every choice. His desire to save Bette and her father from Farnsworth’s evil machinations is the reason Joe agrees to take Farnsworth’s body in the first place.

When Joe learns that he may have to leave Farnsworth’s body, Joe asks Mr. Jordan the obvious question.

Joe:

But there's Bette.

I love her and she loves me as Farnsworth.

You can't ask me to give her up and forget her now.

Bette has already explained the nature of love to Joe:

Bette:

…I'm all mixed up.
When I went to see you, I expected so little.
I'd made up my mind about you
and I was terribly rude.
I always thought I'd be afraid of you.
But something happened.
You were so different.
Strangely enough,
when I was trying to hate you most...
I couldn't deny
there was something warm and friendly...
even gentle, in the way you smiled…
…when you find that in somebody,
it's a great discovery.
I guess that's why I keep staring.
I can't help it.
I suddenly feel so warm and alive
and happy.
It's something in your eyes
and what's behind them...
…When you make a discovery like that,
it's pretty important, isn't it?
More important
than what two people look like...
or who they are, or anything else.

When Mr. Jordan warns Joe that Joe will have to give up Farnsworth’s body for some as yet unknown new one, Joe gives a cryptic alert to Bette:

Joe/Farnsworth:

We got a great life ahead, you and me.
Nobody can take that away from us…
…You remember
you said you saw something in my eyes?
Well, if someday,
somebody came up to you...
it might even be a fighter, and acted like
he'd seen you someplace before...
you'd notice the same thing in him.
Even if you thought you did,
you'd give him a break...
'cause he might be a good guy…

After Joe wins the title in Murdock’s body, his third and final, he and Bette bump into each other by accident.

Bette: Don't I know you?

Joe/Murdock: I don't think so.

Bette: No, I guess not. I thought for a minute I did...

Joe/Murdock:

You know, you were looking at me just now.
You were kind of looking
right through my eyes…

Bette:

…your voice sounded
like I'd heard it someplace before.
I couldn't remember where…
I felt I was standing high up
looking out over the sea...
and someone was swimming toward me,
shouting something.
Something I felt I'd heard long ago.
And I said, "Don't be scared…”

Joe/Murdock:

There's a little place around the corner.
Nice little place called Mike's...
where I go after the fights.
You wouldn't want to...
No, I...
I guess you wouldn't want to tonight,
I guess not, huh?

Bette:

What was it he said?
If I were to meet a fighter, I was to...
I'd love to go with you, Mr. Murdock.

What’s Up with Joe’s Saxophone?

Joe’s saxophone follows Joe’s soul from body to body. His terrible playing travels right along with his instrument.

Like the airplane sitting waiting to transport dead souls, Joe’s saxophone is a visual metaphor. It is the visible and audible manifestation of the continuation of his identity as he moves from body to body.

Once again, the movie provides no explanation why this physical object follows Joe’s soul wherever it goes. It’s just there.

Side Point: Farce

The story intermittently breaks into farce, which is a plus or a minus, depending. (I like farce fine. My wife the humor writer does not.)

Some confuse farce with slapstick. There is no relationship. Slapstick is outrageous physical violence. Farce is something else.

Successful farces include Jean Poiret’s play and movie La Cage Aux Folles, Oliver Goldsmith’s 1773 classic play She Stoops To Conquer, and those Shakespeare comedies about twins, especially the one featuring two pairs of twins who visit the same town at the same time.

Thornton Wilder was well known as the author of the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and the play Our Town. He also wrote The Matchmaker, an excellent farce still performed today.

In 1939, Wilder explained farce in the New York Times:

…farce is based on logic and objectivity.

The author of a farce may ask his audience to concede him two or three wild improbabilities, but thereafter he must proceed with an all the more rigorous consequence. The laughter is an explosion of almost grudging concession: "Yes, granted that premise, these things would inevitably follow…"

…The pleasures of farce, like those of the detective story, are those of development, pattern, and logic.

Thornton Wilder

In the movie, Mr. Jordan is invisible to everyone but Joe. Joe’s manager Max sees Joe talking with the invisible Mr. Jordan and draws the logical conclusion that he can imitate Joe and talk with the invisible Mr. Jordan just like Joe. Farce ensues.

When Stalin signed his pact with Hitler in 1939, Stalin’s stooge Molotov rationalized the deal by calling fascism “just a matter of taste.” The same can be said with much more accuracy of farce, which is truly just a matter of taste.

These farce sequences may go on too long or repeat too many times or both, but they also provide comic relief for a story which otherwise might have come across as morbid, especially in 1941, when the world outside America was already gripped by the most destructive war in history, and death was everywhere.

The Resolution of Romance

In the end, all is resolved. Joe wins the title. He will win Bette too.

The writers’ challenge was to resolve all the grim complications while providing the happy ending a romantic comedy demands.

Audience response suggests they succeeded. All the movie’s writers won Oscars. Harry Segall won for best original story. Sidney Buchman and Seton Miller won for best screenplay. Even today, Rotten Tomatoes rates the movie at 100% on its “Tomatometer.”

Mr. Jordan sums it all up:

Mr. Jordan:

You remember

I said you wouldn't be cheated?

Joe: Yeah.

Mr. Jordan:

Nobody is, really.

Eventually all things work out.

There's design in everything.

You were meant to be champion. You are.

You and Murdock are one.

You belong to each other.

This is your destiny, Joe.

You're back on your own road.

Max Cossack is an author, attorney, composer, and software architect (he can code). His most recent novel is High Jingo. He lives in a dusty little village in Arizona with his wife and no more cats.