Steineded How sad is this?

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

utgard14 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.

jc-osms 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.

yorkie1974 It took this movie about two hours to tell a story that it took "Lost" five years to tell - and with much better acting, writing and directing. Then again, what do you expect? This was a Warner Brothers film starring actors who acted, rather than look at the camera and try to look beautiful.I've never seen a movie with either John Garfield or George Tobias in it that I didn't enjoy immensely. Garfield is one of the all-time greats to me, an amazing talent gone way, way too soon. I've always had this picture in my mind of Garfield as an old man working with Coppola or Scorcese. He was DiNiro or Pacino before there was DiNiro and Pacino.

sfdphd Others have reviewed the plot of this film. I just want to add something that no one else seems to have mentioned. The ending reminded me of the Wizard of Oz. Did they just dream about the ship as Dorothy dreamed about the land of Oz? It doesn't matter, but it was a delightful unexpected ending. I enjoyed the fact that the story kept taking unexpected twists and turns. The first scenes in the port, then the bomb, then the suicide, then the ship scenes, then the Examiner, and finally the ending. Wow, it kept me on the edge of my seat. This film also reminded me of how much I enjoyed the modern film Defending Your Life, with a different kind of Examiner in the afterlife. Check it out if you liked Between Two Worlds.