Back From Eternity (1956) - full review!
Produced and directed by John Farrow (Wake Island (1942)) in the same year that he’d win his only Academy Award sharing the Best Adapted Screenplay Writing Oscar for Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), this remake of director Farrow’s earlier RKO film Five Came Back (1939) features the same Richard Carroll story, but this one’s screenplay was written by Jonathan Latimer instead. It’s a slightly above average adventure drama that doesn’t quite have the impact (or originality) of the earlier film, but does feature more richly defined characters, including more about their backgrounds than the original did (this one is 25 minutes longer). The story is about a South American bound airliner with passengers from differing backgrounds that is forced by a storm to land in a jungle containing headhunters. The survivors must repair the plane in time to escape a terrible fate, but then learn that it will only carry five "back from eternity", such that a decision has to made. The cast is both recognizable and (in some cases) excellent:
Robert Ryan plays the experienced, even legendary pilot Bill Lonagan, who drinks a bit as he nears retirement; Anita Ekberg plays the fallen woman, an unwanted foreign-born close to being deported Las Vegas casino "good time" girl named Rena; Rod Steiger plays Vasquel, who’s on his way to death row in South America for a political assassination attempt on a General; Phyllis Kirk plays Louise Melhorn, who’s eloping with Jud Ellis (played by Gene Barry) but later has eyes for the young co-pilot Joe Brooks (played by Keith Andes) - departing from the original, Barry’s character is not as well defined as Patric Knowles’s wealthy businessman and in fact appears only to be a playboy of sorts (in fact, his subsequent "downfall" is barely shown, making Louise’s loss of interest in him appear more about her sudden attraction to Joe than her disdain for a lack of demonstrable character on Jud’s part); Fred Clark plays the bounty hunter Crimp, who’s only strength is derived from the weapon he carries, that’s taking Vasquel to justice; Beulah Bondi (one of her later films) and Cameron Prud'Homme play the older couple Martha and Professor Henry Spangler, who come to know Vasquel best in the jungle - the two men sharing common interests; Jesse White plays gunman Pete Boswick, who’s escorting his mob boss’s (Tol Avery, uncredited) six year old son Tommy Malone (Jon Provost); and Adele Mara plays the ill-fated stewardess Maria Alvarez. James Burke (uncredited) plays the airline manager Grimsby.
Rather than beginning at the airport, as the original does, this one starts in Las Vegas where the background of Anita Ekberg’s Rena is much better defined than Lucille Ball’s fallen woman Peggy Nolan. Plus, rather than being a one-stop sleeper flight that includes all of the principal cast from the beginning, the characters in this remake are staged to converge onto the same "doomed" plane from a couple of different airports within in the U.S. and then south of the border. Other minor differences (besides just the character’s names) in this film when compared to the original include: co-pilot Brooks (the surname of the pilot in the first one) doesn’t show a pre-flight interest in Ellis’s fiancée; Pete is a more reluctant "nursemaid" for Tommy, almost allowing the boy to fly alone before finding out (by reading the paper vs. hearing it on the radio in flight) that his boss had been killed - plus, Pete is searched and his gun is removed from him before he boards the plane; after the "crash", the possibility of hiking out is never discussed; less time screen-time given to how the survivors obtained and prepared their food and "living quarters" (therefore, who does and doesn't do this work is less character revealing); Steiger's "anarchist" is given more time on-screen (naturally); there's a cat-fight between Louise and Rena over Joe in the stream; and this one has a last touching moment between the Spanglers (discussing their quasi-parental feelings) just before the end.
Most Recent Additions:
I Want You (1951) - full review!
A Bill of Divorcement (1932) - full review!
Patterns (1956) - full review!
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) - full review!
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) - full review!
Hour of the Gun (1967) - full review!
To Sir, with Love (1967) - full review!
You'll Never Get Rich (1941) - full review!
The Actress (1953) - full review!
Mannequin (1937) - full review!
All My Sons (1948) - full review!
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) - full review!
State Fair (1945) - full review!
Billy Budd (1962) - full review!
Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951) - full review!
The Bachelor Party (1957) - full review!
The Glenn Miller Story (1954) - full review!
The Southerner (1945) - full review!
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966)
Never on Sunday (1960) - full review!
The Arrangement (1969) - full review!
A Summer Place (1959) - full review!
Miracle in the Rain (1956) - full review!
Love Letters (1945) - full review!
The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) - full review!
The Absent Minded Professor (1961)
20000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
Come and Get It (1936) - full review!
The Prize (1963) - full review!
This Is the Army (1943) - full review!
Home from the Hill (1960) - full review!
Hangmen Also Die (1943) - full review!
The Shop on Main Street (1965) - full review!
The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969) - full review!
A Gathering of Eagles (1963) - full review!
This Happy Breed (1944) - full review!
Red-Headed Woman (1932) - full review!
Waterloo Bridge (1931) - full review!
Baby Face (1933) - full review!
Titanic (1943) - full review!
Cover Girl (1944) - full review!
Saratoga Trunk (1945) - full review!
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The Young Philadelphians (1959) - full review!
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
Pocket Money (1972) - full review!
Week-End at the Waldorf (1945)
Judge Priest (1934) - full review!
Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) - full review!
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
Angel Face (1952) - full review!
The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) - full review!
Dallas (1950) - full review!
Springfield Rifle (1952) - full review!
Gaslight (1940) - full review!
The Gazebo (1959) - full review!
Passage to Marseille (1944) - full review!
The House on 56th Street (1933) - full review!
Annie Get Your Gun (1950) - full review!
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Lonelyhearts (1958) - full review!
Good News (1947) - full review!
Wild Rovers (1971) - full review!
Lovers and Other Strangers (1970) - full review!
Topper Returns (1941) - full review!
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)
The Winning Team (1952) - full review!
The Hasty Heart (1949) - full review!
Storm Warning (1951) - full review!
[Home] [Hitchcock] [Oscar's Best] [Essays] [Essential Films] [TCM Picks] [Obscure Films] [Links] [Other Reviews] [Academy Awards] [Silent Films] [Movie Index]
