I am looking for the title of an old black/white film about a ship (liner) whose passengers are souls of suicides, etc that are being transported to purgatory or are given a second chance ?

GHOST SHIP?. Ghost Ship (2002) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0288477/)

NO that's the one from 2002...

Maybe THE Ghost Ship 1943 (you can google) but the plot doesn't seem to match.

Either Outward Bound (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021225/) or Between Two Worlds (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036641/)

This unusual supernatural drama, based on a 1924 Broadway stage hit, concerns a disparate group of people who find themselves sailing to an unknown destination on a ship constantly shrouded in fog. Tom Prior (Leslie Howard) discovers that he's travelling with his ex-boss Mr. Lingley (Montagu Love); Mrs. Cliveden-Banks (Alice Skipworth) chats with the steward Scrubby (Alec B. Francis); Mrs. Midget (Beryl Mercer) is curious about how her son is doing; and a young couple, Henry (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) and Ann (Helen Chandler), wonder if they'll be together forever. In time, the passengers slowly realize what's going on -- they're in limbo between this life and the next, and Thompson (Dudley Digges), the "examiner," is determining what will happen with them in the next world, except for Henry and Ann, who unsuccessfully committed suicide and now hover between life and death.