Between Heaven and Hell (film)

Between Heaven and Hell is a 1956 20th Century Fox Cinemascope color 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 Robert Wagner from his life as a Southern landowner to his war service in the Philippines during World War II.

In 1945, on a Pacific island, Sam Gifford Wagner is busted from platoon sergeant to private and reprimanded by his battalion commander for striking an officer. Because he had earned a Silver Star, he is given a choice of being sentenced to the United States Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth or transferred to George Company, a de facto punishment company assigned to a dangerous area of the front lines. Gifford chooses the punishment company, which is commanded by Captain Grimes, a former First Sergeant Broderick Crawford. Captain Grimes insists everyone call him Waco, wears no rank insignia and forbids military salutes lest he become a target for snipers. Everyone in George Company hates Waco except for some prewar regular army comradesinarms Millard Frank Gorshin and Swanson Skip Homeier, who act as Wacos personal bodyguards. Impressed by Giffords combat record, Waco offers him a membership in his private circle as a radio operator. This ends when Gifford beats up Swanson for making suggestive remarks about his wifes photograph. Waco burns the photograph. The incident triggers flashbacks in which Sam relives the path that brought him to this purgatory.Before the war Gifford was a wealthy cotton farmer in the South who treated his sharecroppers with callous disregard for their personal lives. When the United States gets involved in the war, Giffords National Guard unit is called to active service with the United States Army. Giffords fatherinlaw, Colonel Cousins Robert Keith, is also his regimental commander. Despite Giffords wealth and commanding position in civilian life, he is not a commissioned officer but a platoon sergeant. His close association with his former croppers under miserable and dangerous conditions changes Giffords perspectives and he becomes close buddies with several of them. Though capably leading his platoon earns him a medal for valor, Gifford outwardly exhibits signs of fear, battle fatigue, and neurosis. These weaknesses intensify when hi

Source: Wikipedia