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:
“If you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the outward events of a man’s life would only serve to make a chronological table—a fool’s notion of history.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“Adrift dissolving, bound for death;
Though lumpish thou, a lumbering one—
A lumbering lubbard loitering slow,
Impingers rue thee and go down,
Sounding thy precipice below,
Nor stir the slimy slug that sprawls
Along thy dead indifference of walls.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)