Sutton Vane's play Outward Bound was expanded and souped up considerably in this second screen version of the play, Between Two Worlds. The basic ideas of the play and first film have been extended and accommodated to World War II. Several new characters were introduced into the screenplay.
Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker play a young couple who decide to take their own lives via a gas stove. Earlier in the day they saw several people killed when a bomb hits a bus during the Blitz. Parker and Henreid then find themselves on a fog enclosed ship with those same people they saw and a steward played by Edmund Gwenn.
In the original play these people were all British, but because of the wartime alliance some Americans got in on the act. Cynical reporter John Garfield, charwoman Sara Allgood, millionaire George Coulouris and his traveling companion Faye Emerson who used to have a thing with Garfield, vicar Dennis King, merchant sailor George Tobias, and a proper middle class British couple Gilbert Emery and Isobel Elsom.
It takes a while, but soon the others catch on to what Parker and Henreid know already that they're dead. Gwenn informs them that at the end of the voyage they will meet The Great Examiner.
Taking the place of Dudley Digges who played The Great Examiner on stage and in the first film version of Outward Bound is Sydney Greenstreet. The one guy who's relieved at this turns out to be King who recognizes him as an old chum from seminary. Apparently this is how clergy people are used in the next life.
Leslie Howard played the role John Garfield has on stage and in the first version. It was interesting seeing both films back to back to see how two very different actors interpreted and how the screenplay was adapted to fill John Garfield's rebel persona.
George Couloris's character is fleshed out a great deal more in this than in the original version. On screen Montagu Love played it and the man's sins were strictly mercenary. Here he's accompanied by his tootsie Faye Emerson and there's carnal lust in the mix as well as avarice.
Alison Skipworth played Isobel Elsom's part on screen first and in that version, Mrs. Cliveden-Banks is already a widow. Here her husband is brought into the plot, played by Gilbert Emery and her eternal fate is different from the original.
Daniel Fuchs in adapting and expanding the screenplay did manage to still preserve Sutton Vane's message about your eternal fate hanging in the balance of how you live life. Between Two Worlds is still an entertaining fantasy with a strong moral to it.
