The basic story stays the same as Sutton Vane created for the stage in the 1920s. A pair of young lovers agree to die together - the young man sealing their apartment and turning on the gas so that death will be relatively painless. Suddenly the couple find themselves on a fog enshrouded ocean liner with a handful of people on board. These include a vicar, a steward, a snobby socialite, a millionaire mover and shaker, a cynical young man, and a kindly little old woman. As the story unfolds we realize these folk are dead - and they are headed for a final destination on that boat. They will, however, like all good travelers, have to be okay-ed or sent to the proper place by a "customs" official. Only the proper place here will be heaven or hell, and it is based on the behavior of the various parties in disembarking. For the custom's official is an agent of God.
People should not think that the concept of a person being measured for a good and benevolent or a bad and malevolent afterlife is only from the early Christians. The Jews and the Greeks did not think much about afterlife - Jewish "Sheol" was sought of vague and colorless at best. Later (I suspect) a day when the Messianic Age would begin was adopted to buck up the Jews in the face of problems on earth - but this was not an original concept with them. In fact, in the book of Samuel of the Old Testament, using a witch to contact the dead was considered a mortal sin for both using a witch and for disturbing the dead. The Greeks pictured a similar drab afterlife where the ghosts of the dead lived - Homer had a chapter about the dead in their afterlife in THE ODYSSEY. You have to go back to ancient Egypt to find a view of the afterlife that had a place for heaven and hell. The heart of the person was weighed on a scale, and if the same as a feather the person went to a happy afterlife (with all the comforts he enjoyed in his social class on earth). But if it weighed down on the scale, the person was doomed, and given over to a monster (a crocodile) to be eaten.
When Sutton Vane wrote his play it was the ruminations of a veteran from the killing fields of World War I, and the seeming collapse of Western values. He found the answer in intense Christian theology. But along came the Second World War, and the story (while still strong) was updated. The deaths of the majority of the passengers is from a German bombing raid. Now George Tobias was added as an American Merchant Seaman as a passenger, and the millionaire (a pompous figure played by Montague Love in the original film) is a ruthless cutthroat in the hands of George Coulouris. Coulouris has a mistress (Faye Emerson) but he is really too self-centered to have a satisfactory relationship with anyone. The lovers in the original were British, but here it is a foreign alien (Paul Henried) and an American girl (Eleanor Parker). Leslie Howard was a soured idealist in the original, while John Garfield was simply a cynic here. Beryl Mercer's relatively restrained performance in the original was matched by Sarah Allgood here. Finally the snobby Alison Skipworth was replaced by Isobel Elsom (similarly demanding and snobby) but Gilbert Emory is her put-upon, gentle husband here.
There are some fine moments in this film - one of my favorites is when Dennis King as the Vicar remembers a prayer from when he was a child and recites it to the other passengers just before their judge comes aboard. He does it without any outlandish emoting (a far cry from some of his weaker moments in his starring role in THE VAGABOND KING fifteen years before). It may have been his best scene in films.
The judge in the original was Dudley Digges, who certainly gets down to business with typical smoothness and care. Here it's Dudley's successor Sidney Greenstreet. Playing a nice fellow here (which is how he is one of God's agents) he has a choice moment or two when dealing with the passengers - making sure that Garfield gets a degree of stunned humility before he enters heaven accompanied by Allgood, but also dealing with the nastier characters in typically effective Greenstreet manner. Whenever Sidney faced George Coulouris one's sympathies were with Greenstreet (Coulouris always was such a contemptible type against Sydney, even in THE VERDICT). Here it reaches the finest moment between them. Coulouris is used to getting his way with everyone because he's "Lingley of Lingley Ltd." He tries that here, figuring the British class system has been grafted into heaven. Greenstreet tells him he knows and to shut up. Then Edmund Gwenn (the steward - a typically good performance too) starts leading Coulouris away to ... err descend the gangplank, Coulouris demands to know what happened to his question and answer period. "You've had it.", says Greenstreet. "When?", demands Coulouris. "When you said you were "Lingley" of "Lingley Ltd.", replies a stern Greenstreet. He then recounts the unscrupulous business career of Coulouris, who actually does try to defend it (he started in poverty and clawed his way up). But he finds nobody to defend him, not even Emerson.
Greenstreet also teaches Elsom a lesson about her social snobbery. She is to live in a fine house - only she can't leave it and she'll be all alone. Emory, however, is reunited with his old friends.
One can say that the views of the screen writers was simplistic, but in cases of allegory or religious drama simplicity becomes a virtue. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, like the earlier OUTWARD BOUND, remains a very worthy film to watch.
People should not think that the concept of a person being measured for a good and benevolent or a bad and malevolent afterlife is only from the early Christians. The Jews and the Greeks did not think much about afterlife - Jewish "Sheol" was sought of vague and colorless at best. Later (I suspect) a day when the Messianic Age would begin was adopted to buck up the Jews in the face of problems on earth - but this was not an original concept with them. In fact, in the book of Samuel of the Old Testament, using a witch to contact the dead was considered a mortal sin for both using a witch and for disturbing the dead. The Greeks pictured a similar drab afterlife where the ghosts of the dead lived - Homer had a chapter about the dead in their afterlife in THE ODYSSEY. You have to go back to ancient Egypt to find a view of the afterlife that had a place for heaven and hell. The heart of the person was weighed on a scale, and if the same as a feather the person went to a happy afterlife (with all the comforts he enjoyed in his social class on earth). But if it weighed down on the scale, the person was doomed, and given over to a monster (a crocodile) to be eaten.
When Sutton Vane wrote his play it was the ruminations of a veteran from the killing fields of World War I, and the seeming collapse of Western values. He found the answer in intense Christian theology. But along came the Second World War, and the story (while still strong) was updated. The deaths of the majority of the passengers is from a German bombing raid. Now George Tobias was added as an American Merchant Seaman as a passenger, and the millionaire (a pompous figure played by Montague Love in the original film) is a ruthless cutthroat in the hands of George Coulouris. Coulouris has a mistress (Faye Emerson) but he is really too self-centered to have a satisfactory relationship with anyone. The lovers in the original were British, but here it is a foreign alien (Paul Henried) and an American girl (Eleanor Parker). Leslie Howard was a soured idealist in the original, while John Garfield was simply a cynic here. Beryl Mercer's relatively restrained performance in the original was matched by Sarah Allgood here. Finally the snobby Alison Skipworth was replaced by Isobel Elsom (similarly demanding and snobby) but Gilbert Emory is her put-upon, gentle husband here.
There are some fine moments in this film - one of my favorites is when Dennis King as the Vicar remembers a prayer from when he was a child and recites it to the other passengers just before their judge comes aboard. He does it without any outlandish emoting (a far cry from some of his weaker moments in his starring role in THE VAGABOND KING fifteen years before). It may have been his best scene in films.
The judge in the original was Dudley Digges, who certainly gets down to business with typical smoothness and care. Here it's Dudley's successor Sidney Greenstreet. Playing a nice fellow here (which is how he is one of God's agents) he has a choice moment or two when dealing with the passengers - making sure that Garfield gets a degree of stunned humility before he enters heaven accompanied by Allgood, but also dealing with the nastier characters in typically effective Greenstreet manner. Whenever Sidney faced George Coulouris one's sympathies were with Greenstreet (Coulouris always was such a contemptible type against Sydney, even in THE VERDICT). Here it reaches the finest moment between them. Coulouris is used to getting his way with everyone because he's "Lingley of Lingley Ltd." He tries that here, figuring the British class system has been grafted into heaven. Greenstreet tells him he knows and to shut up. Then Edmund Gwenn (the steward - a typically good performance too) starts leading Coulouris away to ... err descend the gangplank, Coulouris demands to know what happened to his question and answer period. "You've had it.", says Greenstreet. "When?", demands Coulouris. "When you said you were "Lingley" of "Lingley Ltd.", replies a stern Greenstreet. He then recounts the unscrupulous business career of Coulouris, who actually does try to defend it (he started in poverty and clawed his way up). But he finds nobody to defend him, not even Emerson.
Greenstreet also teaches Elsom a lesson about her social snobbery. She is to live in a fine house - only she can't leave it and she'll be all alone. Emory, however, is reunited with his old friends.
One can say that the views of the screen writers was simplistic, but in cases of allegory or religious drama simplicity becomes a virtue. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, like the earlier OUTWARD BOUND, remains a very worthy film to watch.