Five Came Back **** (1939, Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Wendy Barrie, John Carradine, Allen Jenkins, C Aubrey Smith) – Classic Movie Review 7845

Director John Farrow’s admired 1939 adventure melodrama Five Came Back stars Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Wendy Barrie, John Carradine, Allen Jenkins and C Aubrey Smith, and is suspenseful and entertaining. Based on the story by Richard Carroll, it is about a 12-passenger plane that crashes in the Amazon jungle and can only take off again with five people on board.

Naturally there is a lot of in-fighting and an outside threat too – headhunters.

Five Came Back has involving characters, decent actors and a good thriller yarn, though it is just a little bit creaky and contrived seeming now

It also stars Elisabeth Risdon, Joseph Calleia, Kent Taylor and Patric Knowles. Also in the cast are Casey Johnson, Dick Hogan, Pedro de Cordoba, Frank Faylen, Charlie Hall, Robert Homans, Selmer Jackson, Tiny Jones, Frank Mills, Pat O’Malley and Ronald R Rondell.

Five Came Back is directed by John Farrow, runs 75 minutes, is made and released by RKO, is written by Jerry Cady, Dalton Trumbo and Nathanael West, is shot in black and white by Nicholas Musuraca, is produced by Robert Sisk, is scored by Roy Webb, and is designed by Van Nest Polglase.

Ball clashed with Farrow on set, alleging he was verbally abusive, especially after production fell behind schedule.

Farrow himself remade it in 1956 as Back from Eternity, and Sands of the Kalahari (1965) is a variant on it.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7845

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