Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Death by Umbrella: the Brollies of Doom

The “Umbrella Murder” is the most famous incident involving the misuse of a brolly, and took place on the streets of London in 1978. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian novelist and playwright who defected from the communist state to work for the BBC World Service, met The Reaper after being stabbed with an umbrella containing a poison pellet whilst he was waiting at a bus stop on Waterloo Bridge. It’s reported that a man holding an umbrella apologised in a foreign accent and then walked off. Later that day Markov developed a high fever and was admitted to hospital; he died three days later.

Due to the suspicious nature of his death, Scotland Yard ordered a thorough investigation including an autopsy, where they discovered a pin sized spherical metal pellet in Markov’s calf muscle. The pellet was made up of 90% platinum and 10% iridium and had drilled holes in which traces of a poison known as ricin were found. The ricin was held in place by a special sugar substance which was designed to melt at body temperature, releasing the poison into the blood stream once the pellet had hit its mark. Ricin is a protein produced by the castor bean plant, found in the leaves and stem, but is most concentrated in the seeds. It is highly toxic to man and has no known antidote.

Markov wasn’t the last person to suffer death by umbrella; in 2003, an 11 year old was beaten to death with an umbrella by her parents after trying to run away from home in Atlanta, Georgia. She had been locked in a room and starved before being beaten, and the cause of death was recorded as ‘blunt force trauma’.

More recently, a court in Rome has convicted a Romanian woman of fatally stabbing another passenger with an umbrella whilst on Rome’s subway. The 21 year-old female victim, Vanessa Russo, was jabbed in the eye with the umbrella tip, and died two days later in hospital. The Romanian was caught on the metro station’s CCTV camera and has been sentenced to 16 years imprisonment. The news has sparked calls for stricter laws on immigrants in Italy, though the incident doesn’t appear to have made a dent in the number of travellers taking a short break in Rome.

For the vast majority of us though umbrellas continue to serve as a useful tool for keeping us dry when the heavens open, but in the wrong hands, this humble household item can become a deadly weapon.

About the Author

Adam Singleton is an online, freelance journalist and keen gardener. He lives in Scotland with his two dogs.

#590) Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Heaven Can Wait [VHS] $14.95 A gung-ho and merciful angel (Buck Henry) pulls Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty), a football star, out of his body before his time, forcing the higher powers to come up with a substitute host. Joe settles on a vicious multimillionaire whose wife and partner are trying to kill him. Light, breezy, with not a mean bone in its body, Heaven is based on the 1941 film Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Beatty is wonder...

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Heaven Can Wait [Criterion Collection] $20.21 On the day of his death in 1943, the spirit of Henry Van Cleave (Don Ameche) obligingly heads for the place where so many people had previously told him to go. The immaculately dressed septuagenarian arrives at the outer offices of Hades, where he is greeted by His Excellency (Laird Cregar), the most courteous and gentlemanly Satan in screen history. His Excellency doubts that Van Cleave has sinned enough to qualify for entrance into Hades, but Henry insists that he's led the most wicked of lives, and proceeds to tell his story. Each milestone of Henry's life, it seems, has occurred on one of his birthdays. Upon reaching 15, Henry (played as a teenager by Dickie Moore) naively permits himself to get drunk with and be seduced by his family's French maid (Signe Hasso). At 21, Henry elopes with lovely Martha Strabel (Gene Tierney) stealing her away from her stuffy fiance Albert Van Cleve (Allyn Joslyn), Henry's cousin. At 31, Henry nearly loses Martha when, weary of his harmless extracurricular flirtations, she goes home to her boorish parents (Eugene Pallette and Marjorie Main). Henry's grandpa (Charles Coburn) orders the errant husband not to let so wonderful a girl as Martha get away from him. Henry once more declares his love to Martha, and she can't help but be touched by his boyish sincerity. Twenty years later, Henry, now a faithful and proper husband and father, attempts to charm a beautiful musical-comedy entertainer (Helen Walker) so that she'll forsake his young and impressionable son. But Henry's gay-90s romantic approach is out of touch with the Roaring 20s, and he ends up paying the entertainer a tidy sum to rescue his son--a fact that amuses Henry's understanding wife Martha, who now knows that her husband is hers and hers alone. Ten more years pass: Henry dances a last waltz with Martha, whose loving smile hides the fact that she knows she hasn't much longer to live. Five years later, it is "foxy grandpa" Henry who must be kept in check by his conservative son Jack (Michael Ames). Finally, it is 1943: as he quietly drinks in the loveliness of his night nurse (Doris Merrick), the bedridden Henry contentedly breathes his last. His story told, Henry once again asks to be permitted to enter Hades. But His Excellency, realizing that the only "sin" Henry has truly committed is attempting to live life to the fullest, quietly replies "If you'll forgive me, Mr. Van Cleave, we just don't want your kind down here." While he allows that Henry may have some trouble getting past the Pearly Gates, the wait will be worth it, since his loving wife Martha will be waiting for him. His Excellency cordially escorts Henry to the elevator, giving the operator a one-word instruction: "Up." A charming delight from first frame to last, Heaven Can Wait is another winner from director Ernst Lubitsch, and his first in Technicolor. Samson Raphaelson's screenplay was based on Birthdays, a play by Laslo Bus-Fekete. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Heaven Must Wait $15.24 A wandering black sheep attempts to gain his angel wings when his large inheritance turns out to be a small church in director Tom Reeve's touching tale of love and redemption. Raymond (Andrew McCarthy) has never been the most popular member of his family, but thanks to a little help from his generous brother Otis, Raymond has always managed to scrape by even in the hardest of times. Just when it seems that things couldn't look any worse, Raymond receives word that he has inherited a property on the English countryside. Upon arrival, Raymond discovers that the property is neither an expansive manor nor a cozy house, but instead a decrepit stone church on the edge of ruin. When conniving village businessman Malcolm Slee (Bill Treacher) approaches Raymond about purchasing the property so that he may ransack the place in search of King Charles' mythical treasure rumored to have been hidden there at the end of the English War, Raymond initially agrees before learning from local bed and breakfast owner Rachel (Louise Lombard) that a poor family has taken shelter in the crumbling house of worship. With the bond between Raymond and Rachel growing ever stronger, and a little help from a friendly young orphan named Diggity (Max Dolbey), Raymond may shed his shady ways and make it to the pearly gates after all. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The Wait $18.18 The Wait

Heaven $5.45 Heaven

Heaven's Gate $9.76 A notorious artistic and financial failure, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate was blamed for critically wounding the movie Western and definitively ushering out the 1970s Hollywood New Wave of young, brash, independent filmmakers. Taking a revisionist, post-Vietnam view of American imperialism, Cimino used the historical Johnson County War incident in Wyoming to create an impressionistic tapestry of Western conflict between poor immigrant settlers and rich cattle barons led by Canton (Sam Waterston) and his hired gun Nate Champion (Christopher Walken). Attempting to mediate is idealistic Harvard graduate and county marshal Averill (Kris Kristofferson), who is both Nate's friend and his romantic rival for the affections of Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert). However, war erupts, at great cost to all involved. Flush from his success with the Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), Cimino demanded creative control, and his insistence on shooting on location and building historically accurate sets and props multiplied the film's original budget to a then-astronomical $36 million. When United Artists premiered the original 219-minute version (sight unseen), they discovered that Cimino had produced an elliptical epic, compounding the box-office difficulties of making a Western without any major stars. Critics howled about Cimino's incomprehensible self-indulgence, and United Artists pulled the film after several days. Re-released five months later, 70 minutes shorter, Heaven's Gate bombed again, and MGM bought out the financially crippled United Artists. The ailing Western genre virtually vanished during the 1980s, Cimino's career never recovered, and Hollywood studios had had enough of bankrolling financially risky ventures by "auteur" directors. Heaven's Gate's reputation recovered somewhat after its video release, as it garnered praise from some viewers for such visually remarkable sequences as the Harvard dance and the final battle, as well as for David Mansfield's haunting score. Steven Bach's book Final Cut provides a full production history. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Made In Heaven $16.72 Can love bridge the gap between Earth and Heaven? Moviemakers have thought so for decades. And the pursuit of eternal bliss has never been so sly, engaging or magical as when Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis strike up a romance Made in Heaven. Deceased drifter Mike (Hutton) arrives in Heaven and quickly falls for newborn soul Annie (McGillis), soon to start her assignment on Earth. When Annie leaves, Mike follows, risking all to find her in her new identity with neither having memories of their previous celestial existence. Maureen Stapleton, Amanda Plummer and an array of star cameos highlight what director Alan Rudolph (Afterglow, Welcome to L.A.) calls a "good old-fashioned fairy tale of destiny and love." Watch and "feel like you're on Cloud Nine" (Joel Siegel, Good Morning America/ABC-TV). 1988/color/102 min/PG/stereo/widescreen.

For Heaven's Sake $13.96 Having suffered a fatal heart attack on the eve of her adoring granddaughter's eleventh birthday, a devoted grandmother wages a valiant fight in heaven to return to Earth one last time and celebrate alongside the little girl she loves most. Sarah Miller (Florence Henderson) adores her ten year old granddaughter Katie (Stephanie Patton), and the feeling is most certainly mutual. At the moment Katie is planning her eleventh birthday party, an event that Sarah claims she wouldn't miss for the world. But when Sarah drops dead of a heart attack just before the party and finds herself ascending to heaven, her only thought is how disappointed her granddaughter will be if her "Nanny" isn't there to share in the delicious cake and memorable moments. Sarah isn't particularly religious, though her heavenly guide Ashley (Yanni King) vows to do everything within her power to help secure the skeptical newcomer a short reprieve from death so she can attend the upcoming party. Meanwhile, down on Earth, Katie has an unexpectedly severe reaction to the news of her grandmother's passing. As the day of the party arrives, Sarah is still in a bureaucratic nightmare of cosmic proportions. The paperwork required for her return to Earth is taking forever to fill out, and as she races to ensure that every signature is in place Katie collapses in agony. Just as Katie is being rushed to the hospital, however, Sarah secures her passage to Earth and makes good on her promise to attend at the party. Upon returning to heaven, however, Sarah witnesses a sight that prompts her to pray as never before. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Black Heaven $28.85 A loyal man is tempted both in real life and in cyberspace in this thriller from director Gilles Marchand. Gaspard (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet) and his girlfriend Marion (Pauline Etienne) head out to Marseilles for a few weeks of sunshine and relaxation, but after spending a few hours by the pool one day, he finds a lost cell phone in the locker room. Gaspard isn't sure what he should do with the phone, and he's all the more puzzled when the phone rings and he finds himself having to help Audrey (Louise Bourgoin), an attractive but disturbed woman threatening to kill herself. Gaspard and Marion help Audrey before she can take her own life, but while Gaspard is deeply in love with Marion, he's powerfully intrigued by Audrey. Gaspard discovers Audrey is a serious fan of an on-line role playing game called Black Hole, and he begins playing too, creating a character that bears little resemblance to his own personality. The fictive Gaspard becomes all the more attracted to Audrey in the virtual environment, until he realizes she's not as benign as he first thought. L'Autre Monde (aka Black Heaven) was an official selection at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi