Outward Bound is a 1923 play written by Sutton Vane.
The play is about a group of seven passengers who meet in the lounge of an ocean liner at sea and realize that they have no idea why they are there, or where they are bound. Each of them eventually discovers that they are dead, and that they have to face judgment from an Examiner, who will determine whether they are to go to Heaven or Hell. Producers stayed away from such an unusual combination of fantasy and drama, so Vane staged it himself, painting his own backdrops and building his own sets, reportedly for $600. It proved to be a huge success, becoming the hit of the 1923 London season.
It premiered on Broadway at the Ritz Theatre on January 7, 1924, running for 144 performances until May 1924. Dudley Digges, Leslie Howard, Beryl Mercer, and Alfred Lunt starred in the production.
The play was revived on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre, from December 22, 1938 to July 22, 1939, running for 255 performances. This production was directed by Otto Preminger, and featured Laurette Taylor, Helen Chandler, and Vincent Price.
Several film adaptations were made, the first being 1930's Outward Bound, with Dudley Digges and Beryl Mercer reprising their roles, while Leslie Howard played Lunt's. It was remade in 1944 as Between Two Worlds, with some changes reflecting World War II. John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, and Eleanor Parker starred.
Famous quotes containing the words outward and/or bound:
“But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found that just in proportion as some have been placed in outward circumstances above the savage, others have been degraded below him. The luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another. On the one side is the palace, on the other are the almshouse and “silent poor.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I don’t know but a book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf—at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel—you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety—& even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)