[5]

I love the concept, but Death Takes a Holiday has a hard time overcoming the theatricality of its source material, a stage play by Alberto Casella. The sets are extravagant and the visual effects used to depict Death are remarkable for the time (double-exposure with a moving camera — I don’t know how they did it without computers). But the film is way too talky — especially at the end, where the characters beat the subtext to a pulp. Fredric March isn’t my first choice for Death. He’s neither frightening, likeable, nor humorous enough to make the role sing. Brad Pitt would do a much better job in the also-flawed 1998 remake, Meet Joe Black.