Between Heaven and Hell

1956
Approved
1h 34m

IMDb RATING

6.6/10

1.6K

YOUR RATING

The spoiled rich son of a wealthy Southerner is changed by his experiences in the Pacific during World War II.

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Drama War

The spoiled rich son of a wealthy Southerner is changed by his experiences in the Pacific during World War II.The spoiled rich son of a wealthy Southerner is changed by his experiences in the Pacific during World War II.The spoiled rich son of a wealthy Southerner is changed by his experiences in the Pacific during World War II.

Director
- Richard Fleischer
Writers
- Harry Brown
- Francis Gwaltney
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.6/10

1.6K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Richard Fleischer
Writers
- Harry Brown
- Francis Gwaltney
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 1 nomination total

Trivia
When Twentieth Century-Fox bought the rights to the Francis Gwaltney novel "The Day the Century Ended", it hired The Twilight Zone (1959) television-playwright and Philippines war veteran Rod Serling to write the script. During World War II, Serling was a paratrooper in the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 11th Airborne Division. However, his draft script was deemed too long and rejected. Other writers were then assigned script duties. He does not receive a writer's credit, so it's not known how much of his work wound up in the final script. He once told of his involvement on this movie, "My first screen job was at Fox on a war flick called 'Between Heaven and Hell'. I turned in a script that would have run for nine hours on the screen. As I recall, it was over 500 pages. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. They just said ''Here's 1500 bucks a week--write!" So I wrote. They eventually took the thing away from me and handed it over to six other writers, but I lay claim to the fact that my version had some wonderful moments in it. In nine hours of script, by God, there HAVE to be a couple of wonderful moments!"

Goofs
None of the ribbons on Waco's khaki shirt really exist.

Quotes
Capt. 'Waco' Grimes - 'G' Co. CO: I've heard about you Gifford. First you go get yourself a Silver Star, then you get busted to Private. Oh it's a rough war, innit?
Pvt. Sam Francis Gifford: Yes sir.
Capt. 'Waco' Grimes - 'G' Co. CO: Didn't you hear what I said about calling me sir?
Pvt. Sam Francis Gifford: I'm sorry, uh, Waco.
Capt. 'Waco' Grimes - 'G' Co. CO: I don't want snipers taking potshots at me every time one of you guys call me sir.

Crazy credits
Opening credits prologue: An Island in the Pacific 1945

Connections
Referenced in Broadway by Light (1958)

User reviews26

Review

Featured review

8/10

Another Out Of Nowhere

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.