Touches You

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

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.

The location of what's directly Between Heaven and Hell is the Pacific Theater during World War II. Robert Wagner, recently a sergeant, but busted down for striking an officer, gets himself transferred to a new outfit. He's now in a company in a forward position on a remote Pacific Island where the outcome is still in doubt. There's one crazy captain in charge played by Broderick Crawford. He's a bit combat happy to say the least.Wagner was a spoiled rich kid who married the boss's daughter, Terry Moore, and he's pretty hard on the sharecroppers he manages. That all changes for Wagner during his service in the Pacific where his national guard outfit is now serving and he's with a lot of these same people and his life depends on them and they, him. He gets to reevaluate a whole lot of what he had believed before.Between Heaven and Hell is a no compromising look at the Pacific War and the men who fought it. Wagner does well in the lead role, but acting honors go to Broderick Crawford as the captain who's bucking for a section 8. When he does get relieved, note the interesting suicide by sniper scenario he sets up for himself. Also Buddy Ebsen plays a very similar role to the one he played in Attack which also came out in the same year. Ebsen plays one of the sharecroppers who Wagner previously looked down on. Ebsen was staging something of a comeback himself, he would soon be cast in Walt Disney's Davy Crockett and then in The Beverly Hillbillies. Some of those comic parts make us forget what a fine dramatic actor Ebsen could be. He just wasn't given the chance often enough.For those who like their war pictures with a minimum of flag waving, Between Heaven and Hell is definitely for you.

I rented this on DVD in honor of director Fleischer's passing a week ago. While it's not among the best of its kind, this underrated war flick is quite well done in most respects - notably the cinematography, in color and Cinemascope, by Leo Tover. Still, with a title like that - as well as its flashback structure and the inspired use of "Dies Irae" on the soundtrack (given a military arrangement!) - one feels that the film had pretensions above its station, which neither hesitant scripting nor the generous budget of a major studio (Fox) could hope to accommodate!That said, the film features a plethora of gripping action sequences and a solid cast, led by Robert Wagner in a better-than-expected performance as the callous-landowner-turned-jittery-soldier and featuring, among others, Mark Damon (whom I saw in person at the 2004 Venice Film Festival, where he was invited to introduce Vittorio Cottafavi's delightful picaresque epic I CENTO CAVALIERI aka SON OF EL CID [1965]!). Indeed, one might say that BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL only falters whenever the narrative feels the need to return to Wagner's civilian life...which almost turns the film into one of those novelettish upper-crust domestic sagas that were popular Hollywood fixtures around this same time!

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.