![]() ![]() Social harpy Genevieve rolls her eyes as she patronizes the lower-class Mrs. Tom Prior thinks everything about people is rotten, and takes it in stride when the greedy actress wanna-be Maxine turns down his marriage proposal. As described, the first film version may now seem a dated if interesting fossil, like Death Takes a Holiday with its precious speeches and heavy-breathing spirituality.īetween Two Worlds lends some of the characters thoroughly modern cynical attitudes. It's not difficult to picture an anemic Leslie Howard prattling wistful poetry about the human spirit. The original play is said to enforce an ethereal mood, with characters apt to break out into 'meaningful' soliloquies at any moment. All Scrubby will tell them is that a mysterious man known as "The Examiner" will be coming on board, and each of the passengers must meet him in turn.īetween Two Worlds presents an old fashioned and moralistic afterlife fantasy, and its schematic collection of humans are easily sorted into those heaven-bound and those going you-know-where. But the Bergners spill the beans, leading to outbursts of protest and denial. The only crewmember is a kindly bartender, Scrubby (Edmund Gwenn), who tries his best to keep the passengers pleasantly ignorant of their situation. ![]() The Bergners soon figure out what's going on: everyone on board is dead, and the ship is taking them to the afterlife. Also on board are Henry and Ann Bergner (Paul Henreid & Eleanor Parker), European refugees that carried out a suicide pact because they were refused passage. Midget (Sara Allgood) and the haughty industrialst & war profiteer Mr Lingley (George Coulouris). They're quickly established as to type: the cynical newsman Tom Prior (Garfield), aggressive actress Maxine Russell (Faye Emerson), merchant marine Peter Musick (George Tobias), the insufferably snobby socialite Genevieve Cliveden-Banks (Isobel Elsom), her quiet husband Benjamin (Gilbert Emery), optimistic Reverend Duke (Dennis King), sweet working class woman Mrs. The original Sutton Vane play needed work to avoid being laughed off the screen by 1944's less poetically inclined audiences.Writer Daniel Fuchs roughed up some of the dialogue so as to better accommodate actors like John Garfield, one of Warners' most popular tough guys of the time.Īs air raids threaten London a group of passengers are America-bound on a steamship. When an irritating woman enters demanding special treatment, The Devil dispatches her to a fiery pit by opening a trap door at her feet. ![]() Ernst Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait disposed of 'holy-holy' attitudes with a framing story set in a reception office in Hell. It should be mentioned that wartime audiences were accustomed to afterlife stories that weren't exactly Sunday-school reverent: Here Comes Mr. The play was revived on Broadway in 1938, directed by Otto Preminger, and finally remade in 1944 as the film Between Two Worlds, updated to the height of the London Blitz. That picture marked the screen debut of actor Leslie Howard, who had also played in the stage version. It was adapted for the screen in 1930, to become an early example of the film blanc fantasy subgenre. Sutton Vane's Outward Bound is a fantasy stage play about a group of people on a mysterious ocean voyage, who only slowly realize that they're really on their way to judgment in the next world. Written by Daniel Fuchs from the play by Sutton Vane Starring John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, Eleanor Parker, Edmund Gwenn, George, George Coulouris, Faye Emerson, Sara Allgood, Dennis King, Isobel Elsom, Gilbert Emery. Street Date Aug/ available through the Warner Archive Collection / 19.95 ![]()
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