Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

One of my all time favorites.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

A passable 1956 film which just happened to be Barbara Eden's (of TV's "I Dream of Genie" fame) first onscreen appearance (all of ten seconds, so don't blink!) as a reporter.For the curiosity of aircraft buffs, the first plane shown leaving the U.S. and arriving in Panama is a four-engine Douglas DC-4 of the then-fictitious "PSA Airlines" which (coincidentally?) became an actual airline company in 1995.The second aircraft leaving Panama for the fictitious nation of "Boca Grande, Pararico", South America is a twin-engine DC-2, registration number N39165 and according to Google sources may well still be in use, although likely for a flying club for vintage craft airshows. Search in airport-data dot com.Also fictitious for the film's purposes was the presumably Panamanian (or other foreign) "Aerea Pan Latina" or "PLA", "Pan Latina Airways" as painted on the DC-2's body. However, this plane could not have been legally registered as N39165 since Panamanian aircraft of that era would have have had an HP prefix followed by three numbers, i.e. HP001-HP999; all N-prefix registration numbers being within the U.S.A.

More 1950's detail was put into this expanded version of the 1939 programmer "Five Came Back" which director John Farrow helped make a cult classic due to its interesting cast, a better than average screenplay and atmospheric photography. Now, towards the end of RKO's years as a movie making studio, Farrow was back with basically the same story where really nothing changed but the year.That being said, a 1950's sexuality with the "almost spilling out of her dress" presence of Anita Ekberg, playing the mistress of a powerful businessman who suddenly kicks her to the curb. She is traveling to South America with an assorted group of troubled passengers which include an aging couple (Cameron Prud'Homme and Beaulah Bondi), a mobster's son (Jon Provost) with his reluctant caretaker ("Maytag" repairman commercial vet Jesse White), a long-separated couple desperate to marry (Keith Andes and Phyllis Kirk), and eventually the political prisoner (Rod Steiger) and the bounty man (Fred Clark at his snarkiest) on their way to Steiger's execution. Add into the fix a boozy pilot (Robert Ryan) and his co-pilot (Gene Barry) who has admired him from afar for years.The first half introduces the story of all these people and is simply a retread of what audiences had seen the year earlier in the much better "The High and the Mighty". However, once the plane crashes in the jungle (with only Bondi passing out, presumably out of shock), the film takes off as fast as the plane crashed, and the conflicts of these people stuck together in the Amazon (with a head-shrinking tribe rumored to be in the area) explodes into tensions civilization couldn't fix. Steiger's prisoner is actually the wisest man among the plane-wrecked crew, spouting wisdoms to try and keep them from killing each other. Once the plane is fixed, only some of them can return, the rest doomed to stay to take their chances with the natives who's drums are already beating.Steiger's character reminded me of Walter Slezak's Nazi villain in the 1944 Hitchcock classic "Lifeboat", the prisoner who is actually smarter than the people holding him hostage. Steiger, however, isn't using his smarts to turn everyone against each other; He's actually better in many ways than the ones living inside the law, and it is touching to see him bonding with the elderly couple who are at first shocked by his crime of being a political assassin.This film might have been a bit better had it been in color, especially since the original was in black and white. However, that doesn't keep this from being a good film, giving us a good cat-fight between Ekberg and Kirk, a seemingly hard as nails mobster with White hiding a big heart for the kid he's protecting, and an amusing villain in Clark who shows that not everybody who is on the side of the law is actually on the side of justice.

For a film director to remake one of his own movies is a fairly rare occurrence, but that's not to say it hasn't happened down the years. Cecil B DeMille made two versions of The Ten Commandments (1923 and 1956); Alfred Hitchcock made two versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934 and 1956); The Vanishing was also done twice by George Sluizer (1988 and 1993).Back From Eternity marks the turn of John Farrow to join this select band of movie makers who have remade one of their own pictures. In this case, Farrow resurrects his 1939 philosophical jungle adventure Five Came Back, but his purpose in doing so is never particularly clear. Indeed, in most aspects this film is actually INFERIOR to its predecessor. Yes, there are occasional moving and exciting moments…. but on the whole it should have been a lot better.A plane flying across South America runs into difficulties during a freak storm and crash lands in the jungle. The pilot Bill Lonagan (Robert Ryan) and his co-pilot Joe Brooks (Keith Andes) reckon they can fix the damaged aircraft, at least partially, but unfortunately for the passengers it's not just a simple case of sitting around waiting for the plane to be repaired. Gradually they come to realise that they're in cannibal country, with a tribe of headhunters preparing to close in for the kill. Things get even worse when the pilots announce they'll only be able to take five passengers aboard the plane – any more will make it impossible to take off due to the weakened engines. Tensions boil as the group debate and argue over who should go and who should stay to face horrible and certain death…..Back From Eternity definitely has a strong cast, with Ryan doing solid work as the pilot with a booze addiction and Rod Steiger in splendid form as a Death Row criminal among their number. Keith Andes makes a surprisingly big impression too as the co-pilot who gets involved in a love triangle. The plot automatically throws up fascinating philosophical questions about the value of life. How can you say one life is more precious than another? How would YOU persuade your way aboard the makeshift plane if you were in those circumstances? Is there a purely methodical way of choosing five worthy survivors… and would there be any way of avoiding the inevitable emotional implications when making such a choice? Unfortunately, though, these inherent philosophical ideas don't make for as engrossing a picture as you might expect. Maybe it's the wordy and over-extended script, or maybe it's the silly extraneous details (e.g a needless love triangle, an exploitative female swamp-wrestling scene, etc.), but Back From Eternity just never quite fulfils its potential.

There were two problems with Back From Eternity which is not the fault of the people who actually made this film. RKO Studios was going out of business as Howard Hughes was busy folding it up. The film was released and then very quickly was on television as the entire RKO film library was. The second is unfortunately the film came out in the wake of The High and the Mighty. Most airplane pictures suffer in comparison to that one.Not mind you that it could have been given better productions values. Color for the jungle scenes and maybe some location shooting instead of dusting off the same sets used for Five Came Back, for that matter for King Kong. Remember RKO was owned by one of aviation's biggest boosters in Howard Hughes. Not that he couldn't have afforded some better productions values. But then again he was getting out of the film business at this time. Then again had he put some money into it, we also would have had more Hughes control and the results might have been interesting. Not necessarily good, but interesting.That being said the cast does a fine job for director John Farrow. Like John Wayne in The High and the Mighty, Robert Ryan is fine as the able veteran airline pilot in charge of getting his passengers and crew back to safety after they've force landed in the South American jungle. Of course with the pulchritudinous Anita Ekberg on board and interested that's enough to give anyone a morale booster. Rod Steiger plays the criminal on the way to his execution, a part done by Joseph Calleia in the original. Both are fine and are an interesting contrast in acting styles.John Farrow added a few things here that were not in the original. One of the dumber things added was a chick fight between Phyllis Kirk and Anita Ekberg while they are stranded in the jungle. I mean was that really necessary John? Added nothing to the plot and kind of stupid when you come to think about it.Still, chick fight and all, Back from Eternity is a good solid piece of entertainment that also asks some important questions about the quality of life collectively and the quality of how one spends his allotted time on earth.