Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I'm happy to say it was worth the effort to get up early this morning to catch this nifty programmer on Turner Classics. I was drawn to the title when I scanned the cable listings and saw Lucille Ball's name in the cast. Her character was described as an ex-prostitute in the brief description of the film, but if I hadn't read that, I don't know if I would have drawn that conclusion from watching the story. She portrays hard luck gal Peggy Nolan who happens to mention that she's had trouble with men in the past, but that could mean anything. Anyway, I've always thought she was a gorgeous actress prior to her Lucy days, and so you've got another picture here that bears that out, particularly in her first appearance on screen looking like a well to do society woman.The story utilizes an often used plot in which an airplane goes down in bad weather and crash lands in a remote jungle setting. The passengers on board come from various walks of life, including an 'anarchist' (Joseph Calleia) being escorted to his home country to face execution by hanging. As the story progresses, I got the impression that the writers were expressing a social and political statement with the motivations of their characters, and to get an excellent overview of those dimensions I would direct you to the review on this board by 'dougdoepke'; it's very well reasoned and articulated.For those of you just looking for a good picture, there's that too. There are some confusing elements though that distracted from the story a little for me. For example, it was mentioned that the crash took place in the Amazon, but if the flight's original destination was Panama City, the plane would never have gotten near South America. Then there's that business about jungle headhunters, and I'm not up on my headhunter lore, but that just didn't strike me as credible. I'll look it up though.Some of the character turns in the picture are predictable enough. Pilot Bill Brooks (Chester Morris) assumes leadership of the stranded group with an able assist from co-pilot Kent Taylor. Under pressure, affluent businessman Ellis (Patric Knowles) takes to the bottle and has a falling out with fiancée Alice Melbourne (Wendy Barrie). Perhaps the most interesting couple in the mix are the Spenglers (C. Aubrey Smith and Elisabeth Risdon), adjusting to their situation with an admirable grace and equanimity knowing that they may never make it back to civilization. If there's a twist to the story, it's the way villain Vasquez (Calleia) emerges to shape the outcome when it becomes clear that the repaired plane can only depart with a total of five on board. He argues for a logical decision to choose who'll survive, reasoning that otherwise, the 'wrong people might win'. Interestingly, I would have picked the same players to make it back home.

No need to recap the plot. Despite the recognizably stock characters (resourceful pilots, fallen woman, respectable woman, et al.), there's something nightmarish about the movie as a whole. Maybe it's the succession of calamities filmed in nourish shadow that's so unsettling. Certainly the jungle creates an exotic air, which could only have been done on a sound stage and in "artistic" fashion as one reviewer sagely observes. Then too, such compelling values only emerge in b&w, with its angular shadows and shades of gray—the stuff of nightmares. Actually, the plot with its character types undergoing the rigors of survival rather resembles the John Ford classic of the same year, Stagecoach (1939).One interesting angle is what the movie reveals about the politics and changing perceptions of the rebellious Depression Era. The passengers and crew divide basically into two camps following the crash—those who join the collective effort to survive and those who don't. Tellingly, three types of traditional rejects—the fallen woman (Ball), the underworld character (Jenkins), and the political radical (Calleia)-- join in and help the collective effort. In fact, the radical sees this cooperative group as a small-scale embodiment of his (socialist?) aims and has no desire to return to "civilization". At the same time, two category types don't join in or help. Also tellingly, both types represent what can be called the "establishment" of the day— the rich man's son (Knowles) and the cruel cop (Carradine). Each stays aloof from the others. Naturally we're led to sympathize with the other group, the collective, since it includes the obviously "good" people—the pilots, the professor and wife, and the boy, (Barries' respectable woman is more ambiguous since she's initially allied with Knowles).The fact that the "rejects" join into what might be called the new "cooperative society" implies that they only became rejects because of problems in the old society that Knowles and Carradine represent. As part of a new social fabric, their "truer" characters can be understood to emerge and in positive fashion. Ironically, each is given a new lease on life because of the crash and the new social relations that emerge. In contrast are those who don't join in. As a privileged offspring of the wealthy class, Knowles persists in the selfishly indulgent habits (boozing) he's used to, while Carradine's abusive cop can't adjust to his loss of authority in the new societal set-up. On his own, neither of the two can survive the new circumstances, which is Carradine's fate, alone in the jungle, while the helpless Knowles again becomes a parasite on the work of others.Now, I don't think the movie stands as a full-blown allegory of the time; however, there's enough resemblance between the character types and national political trends to draw certain parallels. Clearly, Knowles and Carradine parallel the pre-New Deal establishment of entrenched wealth, seen here as parasitical, cruel and resistant to the more cooperative New Deal society ( e.g. creation of social safety net; rise of worker rights). The plane crash mirrors the stock market crash (1929) in removing the power base of the old regime and casting its two survivors adrift, but at the same time, creating fresh opportunities for change. Of course, radical political thought (socialist, communist, anarchist) was more prominent than usual during the unstable Depression and is treated sympathetically in the character of Calleia. He not only commits an act of noble self-sacrifice, but also shapes the future by deciding who stays and who goes. It's also revealing that he and the professor who "understands" him form a bond, paralleling the New Deal's alliance with the academically based Brain Trust that guided administration policy. Both men are seen in the movie as sacrificing themselves for a better future for others.We can't be sure what the future for the Five who come back will be, and I agree that the movie ends too abruptly. The parallels also trail off at this point, though Jenkins' softened underworld character could stand-in for the public's general deference toward bank robbers in particular (Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde). To me, Ball's shady lady has no particular 30's parallel, though I may have missed something. Where the allegory really breaks down is with the conspicuous absence in the movie of a working class counterpart. Of course, worker demands are what drove societal change during the Depression period. In the movie, the pilots might qualify, but they're really more non-partisan technicians than driving agents of change. In a sense, the counterpart doesn't emerge until after the plane crash when the good people go to work.I suppose it's not surprising that the movie slants in an anti-establishment direction given Dalton Trumbo's participation as a writer. Later blacklisted as one of the vilified Hollywood Ten, Trumbo made no secret of his radical alignment, and I suspect the parallels in the film reflect many of his leftish sympathies. However that may be, the movie provides both a suspenseful drama and a telling glimpse of changing politics and perceptions, and is well worth catching up with.

I Tivo'd this because I was told this was a "minor classic". Watched it with my wife and she seemed to stay into it, I was thinking this was a serious "dog". The running line between us was, "which 5?" well we ruled the kid from the start, so I'm thinking OK do the pilots count? The crash (which happens a long almost half way point) yields no new deaths, just a bruised shoulder from the old lovable professor (of Shirley Temple and 4 Feathers fame among many other roles). Anyway a total waste of John Caradine, I was hoping he would be good here, but no luck, he's dead in the jungle after a very bad start. I mean c'mon, is this a chick action flick or what? Hey, its Hollywood, its couples going out, its not about grim realities, its a kind of boy that was cool action flick (if your a woman), its lame (if your a dude). 5 of 10. I don't know why I rate it that high, but the wife didn't fall asleep which is saying something for a old black and white film. I'm into them, and old planes; but this one was barking loud like a dog in heat. I predicted the head hunters also long before they showed up. yawn. Was waiting for some savagery among the survivors (all of them survived, sheesh) but we got nothing like that. Boring B flick worth forgetting about. Also, Lucy isn't in much here if thats why you are are curious.

FIVE CAME BACK is a standard RKO B-film, capably directed by John Farrow with a cast headed by a bunch of veterans who were now entering the B-film phase of their careers--CHESTER MORRIS, KENT SMITH, PATRIC KNOWLES, WENDY BARRIE--and some very good character actors like Joseph CALLEIA, SIR C. AUBREY SMITH and JOHN CARRADINE. At that time, even LUCILLE BALL could be called a veteran actress, having adorned many a B-film in less than impressive ingenue roles, usually as a brassy type with a heart of gold--but this is certainly one of her lesser early assignments. It's easy to get the feeling that you've seen this sort of plot before, perhaps in a different setting.She's rather wasted here since most of the footage concentrates on the men who have more to do in this tale of a plane crash in the Amazon jungle that leaves them stranded near some dangerous natives until they can get the plane fixed. The pilots (CHESTER MORRIS, KENT SMITH) then have to give the others the bad news--the plane can only take off if there are five passengers aboard it. As it turns out, it's up to reformed revolutionary Joseph CALLEIA to choose who stays and who goes. PATRIC KNOWLES is the cowardly suitor of WENDY BARRIE who gets his comeuppance at the hands of the reformed man when he attempts to bribe his way to escape.If this sounds familiar, it's because Farrow directed the same story again years later, called BACK FROM ETERNITY.It's absorbing but obviously a low-budget film, rather murkily photographed using some of the old KING KONG jungle sets (unless that's the fault of the print I viewed on TCM), and the script is better than average for this type of story. But if you have the feeling that you've seen this all before, you probably have. The stock characters facing peril will remind you of those STAGECOACH characters, most of whom had to worry about their fate, some brave and heroic, others more like cowards. Still, it works.