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.

Recently deceased people board a ship that's headed for the afterlife. Warner Bros. remake of Outward Bound, updated to WW2. Entertaining melodrama with an excellent cast that includes John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet, Faye Emerson, George Tobias, George Coulouris, and Edmund Gwenn. Most of the Henreid/Parker scenes are overwrought. Romance by way of panic attack. The Garfield stuff is better. He monologues a lot but it's certainly not a dull performance. Greenstreet and Gwenn are, as always, terrific. Tobias plays another of his genial proletariat roles. Coulouris is a scene stealer as the villain "Lingley of Lingley Limited!" Negatives are the aforementioned melodramatic romance, as well as a staginess throughout the film, and a score that doesn't know when to butt out.

"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.

A group of passengers destined to board a ship to New York are caught in an air raid and their taxi is bombed. At the same time, Henry (Paul Henreid) and Ann (Eleanor Parker) enter a suicide pact in Henry's flat, seal the windows and turn on the gas. We then find the story moves onto a ship where the only passengers are the cast that we have been previously introduced to. Ann realizes that they are all dead. The ship's steward, Scrubby (Edmund Gwenn) asks that Ann and Henry don't tell the other passengers as they haven't yet realized what has happened to them. We find out about the various characters before we are introduced to the Examiner (Sydney Greenstreet) who must send them on to either Heaven or Hell. What will be the fate of the two suicides....? I like this film a lot. I like the story and I like the cast. The weak link is Paul Henreid who can be too over-dramatic. There are moments that will bring tears to your eyes, eg, the fate of Mrs Midget (Sara Allgood) and the sequence at the end where only Henry and Ann remain on board and what happens next......"This is too cruel"......The film works because we are given a cast of players, some of whom we like and some of who we don't and we can have fun anticipating what their outcomes will be. You won't guess any of them but they are all satisfying, as is the film's conclusion when only Henry and Ann remain with Scrubby. Definitely worth seeing again.