Selling Between Two Worlds (1944) Is A Life-Or-Death Call
It's stating the obvious that folks in wartime wondered lots more about what happens to us after death. What better time, then, to remake Outward Bound, an old stage property that explored souls in transit to a next world. There had been screen adapt in 1930, not especially good then, and creaky today as old talkies can get. Between Two Worlds updates the tale to backdrop of fresh conflict, its characters blown up in the blitz and set forth together on route to Heaven or Hell, determined by conduct of each in life. The property has built-in appeal, as who doesn't wonder what afterlife's pay-off will be? Is it really so simple as good rewarded, greed/avarice punished? Between Two Worlds would have us think so. It needs no leap of faith to imagine sweet Sara Allgood en route to paradise, or likeable lunkhead George Tobias bound for same, nor do we doubt George Coulouris headed for hotter clime. Suspense, then, is left to whether attempted suicides Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker will answer for their misdeed, or if cynic idler John Garfield will burn for mere bad attitude. What if final judgment does operate so neatly as movies portray it?
"Lasting Love" was ad-tendered as Theme of Between Two Worlds, a misnomer of sorts, for who had nerve to declare it was all about death? In midst of war, this could spell doom to ticket-selling. Still a majority in 1944 had to contemplate loss, movies the means by which grim thoughts could be pushed from conscious minds for a few hours at least. This may explain well as anything how
| Cleveland Opts for Safe Selling |
