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Between Heaven and Hell
Fox // Unrated // May 21, 2002
List Price: $14.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Filmed in 1956, Between Heaven and Hell has enough distance between its creation and the World War II events it narrates to have a certain reflectiveness on those events. Between Heaven and Hell isn't about the "good" Allies versus the "bad" Axis, per se; in fact, the Japanese make only a few token appearances in this film that's set on a Pacific island in 1941. What director Richard Fleischer appears to be getting at is really a character drama, featuring young, arrogant rich boy Sam Gifford (Robert Wagner) who, after being stripped of his rank for assaulting an officer, is assigned to a battalion commanded by "Waco" (Broderick Crawford), whose method of running the camp anticipates Apocalypse Now.
Taken as a series of vignettes of Pacific combat in WWII, Between Heaven and Hell isn't bad. We get an assault on a beachhead against entrenched Japanese troops; a cunning solo escapade to take out some snipers holed up in a cliff; scouting through a dense jungle infiltrated by the Japanese; and a hilltop defense. There are also some glimpses of the war's effects on the human scale, such as the commander who has gone a little crazy, a bunch of infantrymen whose eyes light up at the sight of a case of beer, and Wagner's character himself, who tries to deal with the fact that his hands go shaky after combat.
However, it's the story that ties these vignettes together that fails to live up to expectations. As I mentioned, it looks like Between Heaven and Hell is trying to be a character drama, showing how the influence of the war has changed the character of Sam from his days as an egocentric, oppressive rich Southerner oppressing his sharecroppers, to a kind and generous man who finds friendship and brotherhood among the poor as well as the "gentry." The problem is that it's all very well to propose that as your theme, but in order for it to work, it has to be shown on screen.
In order to convey Gifford's personality, the film makes use of an extensive series of flashbacks to his home life and early experiences in the war. These flashbacks take up an asymmetrical place in the overall arc of the film, which does odd things to the pacing of the story; even though it's only 94 minutes long, it feels much longer and drawn-out. And even with this history of the character, Gifford still doesn't come to life. Robert Wagner does his best to show the difference between the carefree, careless man of the flashbacks and the "beat" soldier of the present time, but it looks to me that the problem is in the script: there simply aren't opportunities to really show character development. As viewers, we're asked to assume too much, and in the end, I was left unconvinced.
Video
Fox's transfer of Between Heaven and Hell offers an adequate presentation for this 1956 film. It's presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, with anamorphic enhancement. The picture does exhibit a fair amount of noise, in some scenes more than others; at a few points in the film, such as the opening sequence, we also get a smattering of scratches on the print. Colors are a bit drab in general, but otherwise it looks satisfactory and weighs in at a touch above average.
Audio
The DVD's Dolby 2.0 track is, in a nutshell, terrible, but not in the ways that soundtracks are usually terrible. There's no background noise, hissing, or distortion; in fact the track appears to be quite clean. The first problem is that the division of the soundtrack into different channels seems to have been badly mishandled. Voices sometimes don't seem to match up with the location of the speaker on the screen (and this with only two channels to work with, even!). Even more disconcerting is the fact that the sound changes frequently during a single scene: for instance, in several conversations, the sound quality is distinctly different when the camera is in front of the speaker and when it's behind or beside the speaker. It's quite disconcerting and distracting.
The second major problem is that the dialogue is consistently muffled and difficult to hear; I missed a number of lines throughout the film. This ties in with the last major problem of the track: the fact that the music soundtrack is very badly balanced with the dialogue. I had to keep fiddling with the volume control during the entire film; if I turned the volume high enough to actually hear the dialogue, the music would blast far too loudly during non-dialogue scenes, resulting in a see-sawing of volume levels during the whole movie. All in all, the poor audio quality of Between Heaven and Hell was a major distraction from appreciating the film.
Extras
This disc comes with a trailer for the film and a set of trailers for other Fox War Classics.
Final thoughts
Between Heaven and Hell has its moments, but it never quite comes together as a unified film. It's the sort of film that would make a reasonable rental if you're a war movie buff.
Taken as a series of vignettes of Pacific combat in WWII, Between Heaven and Hell isn't bad. We get an assault on a beachhead against entrenched Japanese troops; a cunning solo escapade to take out some snipers holed up in a cliff; scouting through a dense jungle infiltrated by the Japanese; and a hilltop defense. There are also some glimpses of the war's effects on the human scale, such as the commander who has gone a little crazy, a bunch of infantrymen whose eyes light up at the sight of a case of beer, and Wagner's character himself, who tries to deal with the fact that his hands go shaky after combat.
However, it's the story that ties these vignettes together that fails to live up to expectations. As I mentioned, it looks like Between Heaven and Hell is trying to be a character drama, showing how the influence of the war has changed the character of Sam from his days as an egocentric, oppressive rich Southerner oppressing his sharecroppers, to a kind and generous man who finds friendship and brotherhood among the poor as well as the "gentry." The problem is that it's all very well to propose that as your theme, but in order for it to work, it has to be shown on screen.
In order to convey Gifford's personality, the film makes use of an extensive series of flashbacks to his home life and early experiences in the war. These flashbacks take up an asymmetrical place in the overall arc of the film, which does odd things to the pacing of the story; even though it's only 94 minutes long, it feels much longer and drawn-out. And even with this history of the character, Gifford still doesn't come to life. Robert Wagner does his best to show the difference between the carefree, careless man of the flashbacks and the "beat" soldier of the present time, but it looks to me that the problem is in the script: there simply aren't opportunities to really show character development. As viewers, we're asked to assume too much, and in the end, I was left unconvinced.
Video
Fox's transfer of Between Heaven and Hell offers an adequate presentation for this 1956 film. It's presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, with anamorphic enhancement. The picture does exhibit a fair amount of noise, in some scenes more than others; at a few points in the film, such as the opening sequence, we also get a smattering of scratches on the print. Colors are a bit drab in general, but otherwise it looks satisfactory and weighs in at a touch above average.
Audio
The DVD's Dolby 2.0 track is, in a nutshell, terrible, but not in the ways that soundtracks are usually terrible. There's no background noise, hissing, or distortion; in fact the track appears to be quite clean. The first problem is that the division of the soundtrack into different channels seems to have been badly mishandled. Voices sometimes don't seem to match up with the location of the speaker on the screen (and this with only two channels to work with, even!). Even more disconcerting is the fact that the sound changes frequently during a single scene: for instance, in several conversations, the sound quality is distinctly different when the camera is in front of the speaker and when it's behind or beside the speaker. It's quite disconcerting and distracting.
The second major problem is that the dialogue is consistently muffled and difficult to hear; I missed a number of lines throughout the film. This ties in with the last major problem of the track: the fact that the music soundtrack is very badly balanced with the dialogue. I had to keep fiddling with the volume control during the entire film; if I turned the volume high enough to actually hear the dialogue, the music would blast far too loudly during non-dialogue scenes, resulting in a see-sawing of volume levels during the whole movie. All in all, the poor audio quality of Between Heaven and Hell was a major distraction from appreciating the film.
Extras
This disc comes with a trailer for the film and a set of trailers for other Fox War Classics.
Final thoughts
Between Heaven and Hell has its moments, but it never quite comes together as a unified film. It's the sort of film that would make a reasonable rental if you're a war movie buff.
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