Between Heaven and Hell

Between Heaven and Hell is a 1956 American war drama set on a Pacific island in 1945. Sam Gifford, a wealthy Southern cotton planter, looks down on the labourers who work his land and has married the daughter of a colonel. Mobilised with his National Guard unit, he is enraged when a lieutenant panics and turns his machine gun on his own men, and he strikes the officer. Rather than face a court martial, Sam is sent to a disciplinary unit commanded by Captain Waco Grimes, a brutal officer who terrorises the men in his charge. Serving alongside soldiers from backgrounds he once scorned, Sam begins to see the war, and himself, differently.

Richard Fleischer directed, working from a screenplay by Harry Brown, with David Weisbart producing for 20th Century Fox. It was the fourth of the twenty-three films Fleischer directed, following 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and preceding Bandido! Robert Wagner plays Sam Gifford, with Terry Moore as his wife Jenny, Broderick Crawford as Captain Grimes, Buddy Ebsen as the private Willie Crawford and Robert Keith as Colonel Cousins. Running ninety-four minutes, the film took around two million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a 6.6 rating from roughly 1,800 votes, while on TMDB its 6.2 comes from a much smaller base of 37 votes.