Five Came Back

The airliner Silver Queen on its way to South America is forced to make an emergency landing on a remote island. Blown off course and with no way to communicate with the outside world it is left up to the survivors to dig themselves out of this hole if they are ever to see the civilized world again. Also lending a sense of urgency are the distant drums of the island headhunters. Only five will be allowed to leave if they ever get the plane airborne again.

During film's annus mirabalis that was 1939 Five Came Back elbows it's way into the line-up with this adventure thriller that will you keep you guessing up until the picture's final minutes as the natives move in on passengers and crew in the midst of group catharsis.

With his cast of B-listers and character actors director John Farrow has the luxury of eschewing the star treatment and placing everyone on the same tenuous level of being offed at any time. The cast with its variety of pasts, all out of their comfort zone begin to morph to their environment far from the polite society they come from and from it roles are reversed. Acts of nobility and doing the right thing surface from the unexpected. The cast is uniformly adequate though C. Aubrey Smith and Joseph Calleia deserve mention for some very sober powerful moments.

Farrow also amps up the tension by never showing the faces of the headhunters, allowing the jungle in its entirety to be the threat, the unseeable more unspeakable to our imaginations. He also in its brief running time manages to define character while keeping suspense high as you ponder who will make the final cut.

Passengers get ready for the ill-fated flight foreshadowed in the film's title "Five Came Back". Handsome businessman Patric Knowles (as Judson Ellis) and pretty blonde secretary Wendy Barrie (as Alice Melbourne) are going to elope. Looking like either a movie star or a classy call girl, beautiful Lucille Ball (as Peggy Nolan) wants to straighten up and fly right. Elderly botany professor C. Aubrey Smith and his wife Elisabeth Risdon (as Henry and Martha Spengler) want to enjoy their twilight years. As his gangster father is threatened with extinction, cute little Casey Johnson (as Tommy Mulvaney) is shuttled to safety with henchman uncle Allen Jenkins (as Pete)...

Veteran airman Chester Morris (and Bill Brooks) and co-pilot Kent Taylor (as Joe) announce a slight delay when they are asked to take on detective John Carradine (as Crimp) and his prisoner Joseph Calleia (as Vasquez)...

When the plane crashes in an Amazon jungle thought to be inhabited by hungry head-hunters, the crew must chose only five passengers to return home on their rickety, repaired plane. The director, John Farrow, re-made this as "Back from Eternity" in 1956. The later film has a stronger script, but with performances becoming overly obvious. Here, the swiftness highlights subtlety; for example, note the impassionate love between Mr. Knowles and Ms. Barrie, then how Mr. Taylor telegraphs his interest. The more toned-down tart played by Ms. Ball is superior, but lacks detail. You're well off seeing both versions as they make up for things lacking in each other.

******* Five Came Back (6/23/39) John Farrow ~ Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Joseph Calleia, Patric Knowles

Very enjoyable thriller, with a strong ensemble cast. Distinguished by great actors who make the most of their small roles. I was specially impressed by Lucille Ball, surprisingly serious in the role of the "bad woman", and very attractive. John Carradine also shines as the contemptible bounty hunter and Joseph Calleia as his insightful and wise death row prisoner. The budget was very low and the sets show, but John Farrow's direction is very brisk and keeps the suspense and interest up through the short running time. Great dialogue, very well written exchanges between the characters, unsurprising given the three great talents on the script. The rhythm of the film benefits from the crisp timing: if they remade the movie today, it would probably be twice as long, and less interesting.

An example for disaster and stranded dramas to come. One of the most memorable classics of the thirties.

Five Came Back may not be the best B picture ever made, but it is a superior example of one, almost in a way the ideal B in terms of what's done with the subject matter. It's a standard enough story of several people stuck in an isolated setting,--in this case the jungles of South America--and how they cope with their predicament. The story is similar to the one in The Lost Patrol, and is similar to many war movies such as Bataan and Sahara; it was even remade (badly) by the same director, John Farrow, many years later under a different title. A plane carrying twelve people crashes in the jungle. After looking over the damage it is determined that the plane can be made to fly again, but it can carry no more than five people. The problem is that not too far off is a tribe of head-hunting Indians; whoever is left behind will almost certainly face a horrible death. Eventually the passengers' numbers are whittled down by various factors, and the character who seemed early on the most sinister undergoes a remarkable transformation. This is not a deep movie, nor, as a study in character is it remarkable, though the characters are far better realized than in most films, let alone second features like this one. I can't help but think that Five Came Back was designed as a sort of small or experimental A picture. It was a surprise hit when it came out and put director Farrow on the map in Hollywood. But he was an up and comer anyway, a screenwriter and husband to actress Maureen O'Sullivan. Although leading man Chester Morris had pretty much become a B actor by this time, he is fine as usual (one can easily imagine Clark Gable playing the role in a Metro A version). Lucille Ball has a good part, and so does Allen Jenkins, much softer than usual here. C. Aubrey Smith is prominently featured, which again makes me wonder just how B this picture really is. The jungle setting, like the story, is quite obviously artificial, which is no way detracts from the film, since we expect fake jungles in thirties movies anyway. Overall, the technical side of the movie is more than good enough, and since RKO produced it, there is a special quality here hard to pin down; for want of a better term I'll call it artistic, as opposed to slick, which is what most studio movies were. This artistic aspect of the film gives it a gravitas that it almost certainly wouldn't have had had it been made elsewhere. It's a good show, thoughtful and moving at the same time.

Years ago in New York City I saw the re-make of this film Back from Eternity which was broadcast on WOR TV's Million Dollar movie program. For most of you too young to remember WOR was an RKO station and had access at the time to the entire RKO film library. Films would be run as much as five times a day for a week, like a movie theater.

Back from Eternity was fine, but Five Came Back was really something special. Fortunately RKO had those old King Kong jungle sets and used them for this film. Cut down the cost considerably.

No big names in the cast either. Lucille Ball was not a big name at the time she made it and she's light years from Lucy Ricardo in this. She's a cynical good time gal who's been hurt by one man too many. Chester Morris started the sound era in some A product at MGM, but now was at the B picture level. But they and the rest of the cast nicely fill their roles.

The plot is simple. Morris and co-pilot Kent Taylor are flying a small passenger airline over South America and are forced down in the middle of a rain forest. Some patch work repairs are done. But the plane won't get off the ground with a full load. Some choices have to be made.

But because Joseph Calleia gets a hold of a gun he winds up making the choices. He's a political prisoner being taken to his execution, escorted by policeman John Carradine. With native headhunters all around and them having killed a couple of the passengers already, time is critical.

It's a good film, but if you see either this one or the remake it will be spoiled should you have an opportunity to see the other later.