Between Two Worlds (1944)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Producer: Mark Hellinger. Copyright 20 May 1944 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. U.S. release: 20 May 1944. New York opening at the Strand: 5 May 1944. Australian release: 6 December 1945. 10,255 feet. 114 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Eleven or twelve people are killed in a London air raid as they are going to a ship taking them to safety. The ship becomes their transport to heaven or hell. Aboard are Tom Prior, a derelict newsman, Maxine, a faded showgirl, Cliveden-Banks and his society snob wife, American merchant seaman Pete Musick, and Reverend William Duke. Also among them are Mrs Midget, a meek little housekeeper, and Lingley, the arrogant head of Lingley, Ltd. Austrian pianist Henry and his wife Ann almost miss the ship. Scrubby, the ship's steward, tells them that they alone know they are dead.NOTES: Outward Bound was originally filmed under that title in 1930. It starred Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Helen Chandler and Alison Skipworth and was directed by Robert Milton from an adaptation by J. Grubb Alexander..COMMENT: Poor old Edward A. Blatt is here saddled with yet another of Warner's ambitious yet dated remakes, with the cast struggling against impossible lines and corny situations. The sets are impressive and the opening reel with its fluid camerawork and fast-paced film editing gets the film off to a good start. Paul Henreid cast in a Casablanca-type role holds considerable promise, none of which is realized once the script leads into the original Outward Bound material.

I love the fantasy-themed movies from cinema's golden age about life after death, like "A Matter of Life and Death", "It's A Wonderful Life", "Heaven Can Wait" and many more. I likewise love the "time" plays of JB Priestley, like "An Inspector Calls", "Time And The Conways", "I Have Passed This Way Before" etc all of which this 1944 feature put me in mind of. The fact it co-starred possibly my favourite actor of that time, John Garfield, made it even more of a treat.Pretty obviously based on a popular recent stage play, you can almost see the actors lining up their positions and cues on this very studio-bound production, it's a very talky piece as it seeks to rather hammer home it's "do good to others as others would you" message similarly to the afore-mentioned "An Inspector Calls".The disparate characters gathered on the dark, empty ocean liner all pretty much get their just desserts, with the selfish and irredeemable going to bad places, the good or sinned against getting everlasting reward (one is promised endless games of golf with his chums, which sure sounds like heaven to me) which just leaves the borderline cases for special consideration.These include smart-aleck charlatan Garfield and his equally cynical, money-grabbing girlfriend, who both have to look to themselves for their own deliverance, the former assisted in this from an unexpected source. Then there's suicide victim Paul Heinreid and his devoted-'til-death wife who are accordingly considered special cases.Joining them on the journey are their on-board hosts, avuncular steward, Edmund Gwenn and as the heaven or hell decision-maker Sydney Greenstreet, the latter bedecked in an outsize Marty Hopkirk suit.I predicted the ending well in advance but other aspects of the film caught me by surprise. With a surprising lack of special effects, the director does a convincing job of putting across the extraordinary plights of all the individuals concerned.So there you have it, an other-worldly morality tale, meant to send you home thinking hard after viewing it then vowing no doubt to better yourself and help your poorer and downtrodden fellow man and woman and it's easy to see its message as a metaphor for the repudiation of the recent Nazi occupation of Western Europe. Of course you don't need to take it as seriously as all that, but whichever way you do, you'll be entertained.

Based on Sutton Vane's play, directed by Edward A. Blatt, with a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs, this above average fantasy drama features an all star cast which includes John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, Eleanor Parker, Edmund Gwenn, George Tobias, George Coulouris, Faye Emerson, Sara Allgood, Dennis King, Isobel Elsom, and Gilbert Emery. It's about a number of people on a cruise ship that eventually discover it's their transportation to another world, e.g. Heaven or Hell.Cynical foreign correspondent Tom Prior (Garfield) and his girlfriend "yet to make it" actress Maxine Russell (Faye Emerson), along with Merchant Marine Pete Musick (Tobias), Reverend Duke (King), Mrs. Midget (Allgood), and the wealthy Mr. & Mrs. Cliveden- Banks (Emery & Elsom) wait for the all clear in World War II ravaged London so that they can board their cruise ship for safe passage to America. Famous opportunistic wartime businessman Lingley (Coulouris) arrives at the terminal, angry that there are no seats for his bodyguards to accompany him on the voyage. Failed pianist Henry Bergner (Henreid) is upset that he cannot get a ticket at all, so he leaves to return to his apartment. Just as an air raid begins, and the passengers are loaded into a bus, Bergner's wife Ann (Parker) rushes to its window, calling Henry's name. But he is not inside, and as the bus pulls away, Ann witnesses it being hit by a bomb. She returns home to find her distraught husband; he'd tried to leave her, ashamed of his own failures, so that she might find happiness without him. She discovers that he's sealed the windows and extinguished the heater's pilot light, so that the room is filling with gas, in order to commit suicide. He pleads with her to leave him, but she refuses to go.The Bergners find themselves walking on the deck of a fog shrouded cruise ship. It takes them a moment, but they realize that they are dead when Ann sees the passengers from the bus through a window. The other passengers, other than noticing the dearth of other passengers or any more than one crewman, the bartender Scrubby (Gwenn), are blissfully unaware that they too are dead. Scrubby informs them that they are on their way to another world, their afterlife. He then instructs the Bergners not to inform the other passengers of this fact either, that it's better if they find out in their own time, that the Bergners know only because they died by their own hand(s). The sharp, quick tongued Prior is the first to discover it, but he too is asked by Scrubby, and then Henry (who Scrubby had asked to help him), not to reveal it. Prior is only too happy to keep the secret, and his primary joy seems to be derived from heckling Lingley, who he'd written about and exposed through his writing in "the first world". However, eventually he can no longer resist the temptation, and he delights in telling "his" secret theatrically.Naturally, each of the passengers has his or her own regrets about the lives they've led or where they were headed before they were killed. Unfortunately for actress Russell, she was heading for her first big chance, a USO tour of the United States, after having made bad choices (e.g. with men) earlier in her career. The Reverend too was making his first big venture, and trip outside of his village, to spread the word of God. Merchant Marine Musick, after surviving three torpedoed boats, was returning home to see his child for the very first time. Lingley insists he has no regrets, though he'd tried to seduce Russell and hire Henry as a bodyguard, and attempts to buy his way out of this fate. Scrubby, who provides a calming influence for everyone, informs him that he cannot escape his destiny and keeps the ship firmly on schedule until the white suited Reverend Tim Thompson (Greenstreet) arrives.Reverend Thompson, who was known by Reverend Duke in the other world, is the Examiner - judgment day has arrived for the ship's passengers. Greenstreet, like Gwenn, plays his other worldly role to perfection. One by one the passengers are relegated to Heaven or Hell, though those terms are never used. Instead, an indication as to whether they will be going to a paradise or another "place" to account for their sins is strongly suggested. It is then learned that the arrogant, class-conscious Mrs. Cliveden-Banks was cheating on her husband, assuming all along that he didn't know and therefore, since she wasn't hurting him, it was alright. The Examiner, and then Mr. Cliveden- Banks, informs her otherwise. Everyone else, after a their brief meeting, exits on their way to where one would expect until it's Prior's turn.Prior is saved by Mrs. Midget, who agrees to take care of him and be a good influence, enabling him to begin again as the little boy with big dreams of his future. After he's "left", it is revealed that Mrs. Midget was Prior's birth mother, unable to care for him, she'd had to give him up for adoption such that he never had her mothering influence before, but now will. Henry Bergner will have to stay with Scrubby, also a suicide, to serve future passengers on this ship or one of the many others. Scrubby urges Reverend Thompson to take Ann with him, that she shouldn't be made to stay because it was her love that led her to the fate that her husband had chosen. Henry pleads with Ann to leave, but she will not go. So the happy ending almost anyone could see coming is delivered - the breaking glass Henry keeps hearing is shown to be the window of their apartment, which let the gas escape as fresh air rushes in, so that Henry awakes and revives Ann - and they live happily ever after ... in London!

"Between Two Worlds" is one of the best examples of one of the rarest of move genres, a fantasy for grown-ups. I can't think of many other successful examples of this sort of thing off hand beyond, perhaps, Powell and Pressburger's "A Matter of Life and Death". By "adult" I do not, of course, mean that there is anything off-color or X-rated about the film. On the contrary, it's pretty tame by today's standards. This film is simply a fantasy for adults in the sense that it was not for or about children or adolescents. A small, ill-assorted group of people find themselves together at night on a fog-shrouded passenger ship with no other passengers, and no crew save for a single steward. Two of the passengers, who are slightly apart from the others, have committed suicide and are aware that they are dead. The others know nothing. The steward, who knows what is going on, caters to the passengers wishes and pretends that everything is normal.The film is very well done, with a first-rate cast of the sort of character actors they simply can't assemble anymore, wonderfully atmospheric sets, and set against an excellent Korngold musical score. I understand there was an earlier version with Leslie Howard, called "Outward Bound". I've never seen it, but it would be interesting to see it and compare it with this version.