... in that this film is a remake of the 1930 film "Outward Bound". Usually production code era remakes of precode films may be technically superior but are inferior productions overall because of the absolute just and moral ending the production code required. This film is an exception, although the original is worth watching too since WB managed to get most of the original cast from the play. In 1930 Warner Brothers was just stepping out of its poverty row roots. By 1944 it was in the big leagues with big name stars and directors. It is interesting to see how WB has "grown up".
The film opens with Paul Henreid's character, Henry, desperately trying to get an exit visa so he can get to America. Wait a minute, haven't I seen this movie before? Nope. This is not the brave hero of Casablanca. Henry is a concert pianist who cannot work because his nerves are shot first from fighting with the Free French, and then from all of the bombing raids in London. His hands will not stay steady. He returns home where his wife (Eleanor Parker as Ann), after frantically looking for him, finds him and realizes what he is going to do. She sees the gas turned on she sees the rags stuffed around the window. He says he is no good to anybody, that she should not waste her life on him. Then suddenly, while Ann is pleading with Henry to live, the scene changes. They are aboard a fog bound ship. And strangely enough, all of the characters onboard were being taken to the docks to sail to America. And also strangely enough, they were all blown up in a bombing raid in the car that was taking them there.
The passengers are a cross-section of humanity - a rich ruthless self made businessman (George Coulouris), a snobby socialite and her hen-pecked doormat husband, an older Irish woman traveling alone who is very tight lipped about why she is going to America, an annoyingly happy member of the merchant marine returning home to America to his wife and baby that he has never seen, a broken down cynical reporter (who else could this be but John Garfield?) and his used up girlfriend, and a minister.
So they are all dead but none know the truth except Henry and Ann. So they get to hear all of these people just think they are on a ship to America, some with their dreams to change their fortune, some with plans to go on exactly as they have before, some just wanting to go home, but it is too late for any of these things. The scale is going to be weighed for them - heaven or hell - based on exactly where they were when they died in that raid, and before they leave the ship.
Who does the judging? Sydney Greenstreet, who was the Reverend Tim Thompson in life, and who is one of about a dozen "examiners" in death, amiable but rigid.
So maybe Warner Brothers took this plot out of moth balls because WWII had the specter of sudden death hanging suddenly over American homes, and certainly over European ones. So people were thinking about the afterlife suddenly being cast upon them more than usual. It is meant to ultimately have a hopeful message, but also one that says that what you do in this life counts, and maybe who and what you consider to be important in this life doesn't count in eternity.
I knocked one star off for over simplification in a few places, and you have to expect over simplification when it comes to production code era films, so maybe I'm being unfair. For one thing, the steward, Stubby, makes it sound like it is a regular thing for the dead to be on this ship and only gradually realize they are dead. But these people were boarding a ship when killed. What happens if you die in the desert or in an auto crash? Won't you immediately wonder, like the young couple, what you are doing on a ship? This ship is adjudicated by Judeo-Christian values. Are there Islamic and Buddhist death ships afloat as well? And then there is the line - ""You see my son, you make your heaven and hell for yourselves on earth, you only bring it with you here." What if you were born blind, or born ugly, or born poor? What if you were born to narcissist parents or abused as a child? Isn't fate somewhat putting a finger on the scale in all of our cases as to whether life is heaven or hell? I guess it is a sign of a good film if it makes me ask such questions.
This one has great performances by many of Warner Brothers' stock company who hold your attention throughout, with a great haunting and hypnotic score by Erich Korngold. I'd recommend it.
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