Between Heaven and Hell

Before he started making huge, bloated, disastrously money-losing films in the '60s (Dr. Doolittle, Che, et al.), director Richard Fleischer was responsible for some good, tight well-made little B pictures. "The Narrow Margin" and "Armored Car Robbery" in the early '50s were outstanding film-noir classics, made for very little money. Fleischer made this in the period between his low-budget black-and-white thrillers and his '60s monstrosities, and it's a good one. Robert Wagner is the callow, spoiled rich son of a Southern landowner whose National Guard unit is suddenly activated during World War II and sent to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. Wagner finds himself in the same company with the sharecroppers and tradespeople he scorned back home, and is sent to a base run by a power-mad, vengeful officer who treats his troops the same way Wagner treated his " 'croppers" back home.

This is one of Wagner's better performances. Unlike many of his earlier films, Wagner doesn't try to get by on his good looks and youthful charm; he turns in a first-rate performance here, as do most of the cast. Broderick Crawford as Wagner's crazed commander doesn't quite fit the part, and Skip Homeier--usually a solid, reliable character actor--goes a bit overboard as one of Crawford's goons, but Buddy Ebsen, as one of Wagner's sharecroppers who turns out to be his best friend, L.Q. Jones and Tod Andrews are fine in pivotal parts, and Fleischer stages some exciting battle scenes. Altogether, a well-made, exciting little B picture from 20th Century Fox--a bit garish in Technicolor (black and white would have been more effective)--but well worth your time to see it. Highly recommended.

I have a large collection of war movies and consider this one to be among the best ever made. Many of the war movies have what I consider to be too many flashback scenes of home and try to become love stories with a few battle scenes. These scenes in Between Heaven and Hell actually have a real purpose in the story. More than any war movie that I have seen, this one shows a trend in American history that is often overlook—the fact that wars and the men who serve in them traditionally return home with a more egalitarian outlook, hungry to reform the society that they left. Between Heaven and Hell shows a man's transformation into a better person as a result of his war experiences. Sam Gifford is a man on the edge of breaking from the strain of war. He has experienced loss and hardship and realized that in the past he has been the unnecessary source of it for others. Between Heaven and Hell has a psychological realism that most war movies lack. It shows war heroes for what they are—men who rise above their ordinary selves to do extraordinary things in adversity. This is great story telling with great characters.

Another reviewer said it best when he called this film 'unpretentious'. Today, of course, most films are pretentious and overblown. Maybe it's because we now live in a pretentious and overblown country, one where people would never listen to the message of a movie like this.

This is one of those rare occurrences where a movie is so well done it seems to exist outside its era. This film was made in 1956, which is amazing, considering the outstanding photography and the striking characterizations. Nobody talks or acts like '50s characters. Things seem a little more dangerous, more savage, so that it would seem you were watching a film from the '80s instead. Of course, in the '80s they didn't make movies like this, they made pretentious ones. But they should have.

The big war films of the '50s were usually full of stock characters and unlikely situations, crammed with out of place stock footage. An example of that kind of mediocre war movie is 'To Hell And Back'. This movie is everything that 'To Hell And Back' was not. 'Between Heaven And Hell' has more interesting and unique characters, more authentic weaponry, and the photography is of a much higher standard.

The reasons why some rather dull movies become well known, while others, like this, remain obscure, has always been a mystery to me.

I saw this film more than 40 years ago for the first time, and now I saw it again recently. This war film is not another one in my personal opinion, it shows many of the tragedies that usually are brought about by any war, innocent soldiers killed accidentally by their colleagues, soldiers afraid during and after the battle, reconsideration of past way of life during the war making statements for changing life after the war, and cruel officers like the one played by Broderick Crawford. The film indirectly touched the problems of exploitation of cotton growers, the way they worked and how they were mistreated by the owners of this business. Piece by piece, the film is positive in its messages, but colored by the usual Hollywood Happy End.

Considering that Cinemascope had been introduced only three years earlier, this is one of the outstanding examples from the 50s of a director and cinematographer composing shots for widescreen. I've been teaching film for almost 40 years and would unhesitatingly show excerpts from this in any basic course on movies. Just to sample some, check out Minutes 40-50, especially the quartets of lounging soldiers in medium shot. Sometimes the compositions seem a little self-conscious, but overall this is a remarkable film stylistically. It's wonderful to be able to see it again in widescreen format, as well as other movies that go back to my teenage years. That's why DVD is so great.