God Is Nice

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

OH, GOD!

Directed by Carl Reiner Screenplay by Larry Gelbart

Look at it this way: If you were God and chose to manifest yourself on earth, wouldn't you give serious consideration to appearing as George Burns? The man has always had a quietly authoritative air about him--a realist who has somehow avoided the trap of cynicism. Better still, he is one of the rare comedians who have never begged an audience for sympathy (a business as fatal to comic belief as it is to divine belief). Burns maintains a reserve, a dignity that must surely be appreciated in heaven, if only because of its increasing rarity here below. Finally, there is Burns' impeccable --and legendary--timing. It is a quality as essential to working miracles as it is to telling jokes.

Casting Burns in the title role of this film is inspired in the largest sense of the word. He is a God more irritated than wrathful--no showy thunderbolts from him. Rather, he is the sort who might decide to make his presence on earth known not to Billy Graham, but to an assistant manager of a supermarket in Tarzana, Calif. It even seems natural for him to pass among us in fishing cap, Windbreaker and see-through plastic raincoat. His style reinforces one of the film's basic points: we place too much emphasis on status these days, and this, combined with our absorption in work (a lot of which turns out to pollute the globe), is the source of most of our difficulties.

No question about it, Burns has all the picture's good lines and bits, which is only right, considering his role. The script is well crafted by Writer Gelbart, working from a novel by Avery Corman. They give us a Supreme Being capable of admitting his mistakes (ostriches, for example, and avocados), taking pleasure in his successes ("That's profound," somebody says when God manifests his wisdom at one point; "Sometimes I get lucky," responds the deity). Called upon to prove his powers by changing the weather, he makes it rain only inside the skeptic's car, there being no point in spoiling everyone else's day. Asked about recent miracles, he lays claim only to the New York Mets' 1969 World Series victory. Mostly he dismisses matters of this kind contemptuously: "Special effects," he sniffs.

Still, it is not Burns alone who makes the picture work. Singer John Denver is agreeable as his reluctant modern Moses, and Teri Garr is marvelous as a model of wifely forbearance, deftly blending skepticism about her husband's claims to contact with the higher-up and faith in his fundamental good sense. Carl Reiner's low-keyed direction avoids some obvious errors. Once Denver begins preaching the latest word from on high, the media get interested, and there is an opportunity to make the customary comments on the circus aspects of overnight celebrity. But Reiner makes the point lightly. Heavy preachment is just not his style. The result is a movie that tugs at your arm instead of blasting in your ear. Oh, God! is a nice movie about some nice people who have been made in the image of a very nice Jehovah. -- Richard Schickel

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