Between Heaven and Hell

Between Heaven and Hell (1956)

From the best-selling novel of young love in war!

Sam Gifford remembers : In prewar years he was an arrogant southern cotton plantation owner, married to the daughter of a colonel. At the beginning of the war he was mobilized with his National Guard unit as a sergeant. Came the day when, revolted by the cowardice of his lieutenant, who had fired at his own men, he hit him. Downgraded, he was sent to a disciplinary battalion. Sam now discovers his new detachment, his new commanding officer, just another cowardly brute, Captain Waco Grimes. While in combat, Sam will gradually become closer to the privates, working-class people he used to despise. He will become another man, a better man.

Date of release
1956-10-11
TMDB
6.2 / 10 (37)
Runtime
1h 34m
Genres
War, Drama
Director
Richard Fleischer

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Hawaii
  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Between Heaven and Hell is a 1956 American Cinemascope war film based on the novel The Day the Century Ended by Francis Gwaltney that the film follows closely. The story is told in flashback format detailing the life of Sam Gifford from his life as a Southern landowner to his war service in the Philippines during World War II.

Production

Arkansas-born Francis Irby Gwaltney soldiered in the Philippines with the 112th Cavalry that served throughout the Pacific doing several amphibious landings. During this service he met and formed a friendship with Norman Mailer.

The Day the Century Ended was Gwaltney's most famous novel. When Fox picked the 1955 novel up for filming, they assigned it to Philippines veteran Rod Serling, famed for his American television plays. Unfortunately, Serling's first screenplay was nine hours long, and the project was given to other writers, notably Harry Brown, who had written the book A Walk in the Sun.

Between Heaven and Hell is one of the 1950s depictions of the US Army that did not paint a recruiting poster image and was more in tune with many soldiers' memories, such as From Here to Eternity, Robert Aldrich's Attack or Samuel Fuller's films.

Fleischer uses the Cinemascope widescreen format well, notably in views of hills lit up by a firefight.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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