Beyond Tomorrow (1940)

It's Christmas Eve, and elderly Allan Chadwick (C.Aubrey Smith), George Melton (Harry Carey) and Michael O'Brien (Charles Winninger), the partners of Chadwick, Melton and O'Brien Engineers located in Radio Center in New York City, are working late as usual before having a small dinner party at their home, which also serves as their office. While they treat their servants as friends, such as Josef (Alex Melesh) the butler and especially Madam Tanya (Maria Ouspenskaya) their housekeeper, she a deposed Russian countess (Josef her longtime servant before the two came to the US), they realize that they have lost many friends over the years in being workaholics when their dinner guests cancel at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances, George further believing their cancellation stemming from they learning of his attendance and not wanting to associate with him due to an unseemly issue from his past. Wanting to spend the evening with who they consider deserving people, Michael comes up with an idea to hold a lottery of sorts to find those replacement dinner guests with only the truly deserving who would come forward. Who shows up are James Houston (Richard Carlson), a Texas cowboy feeling emotionally lost in New York City, and Jean Lawrence (Jean Parker), a kindergarten teacher at a children's clinic. This entire collective end up as close friends, but that friendship is short-lived when the three partners are unexpectedly killed in an accident. Before they are called to their final afterlife resting place where they will spend eternity, Allan, George and Michael return as spirits to their home, Michael in particular who believes they sent back to ensure their friends are well taken care of, especially that there is a happily ever after for James and Jean who he could see were falling in love with each other. However, Michael may feel powerless, especially within the short time-frame he has before he goes to his final resting place, as he watches James, who becomes a singing star, take a wrong path in falling under the spell of his stage partner Arlene Terry (Helen Vinson), whom Michael considers a soulless woman.