Back from Eternity (1956)

Back from Eternity (1956)A surprisingly well made movie. The plot is a big contrivance in a way, a calculated drama of conflicting character types in a survival situation. But the acting is excellent, the script tight, and the direction and pacing really strong. Robert Ryan leads the group, literally as the pilot of the doomed plane, and he's in great, restrained form. Eventually he is matched, as an actor, but the nuanced, quirky Rod Steiger, who plays a criminal of sorts. The two leading women are Anita Ekberg, who is here as an ornament as usual, but ends up being a decent character after all, and Phyllis Kirk, and dependable secondary actress.It's probably coincidence, but here is a movie about an airplane by the studio (RKO) run by Howard Hughes, and aircraft industrialist. And it was one of RKO's last films, being ruined (along with all the studios) by the collapse of Old Hollywood. While not a big budget movie, the sets are contrived to work within their limitations, being stuck, as it were, in the jungle. The weirdest thing here might be that the director (and producer), John Farrow, made the same movie in 1939. The first one is supposed to be better, but I haven't seen it, and this one holds its own. Partly it's just the searing acting of Steiger, and of Ryan. If the plot were not quite so improbable, and the inevitable weeding out of the survivors from the victims, the movie might be considered really excellent. It never wavers (except maybe the girl fight in the pool, which is stupidity), and it has lots of nuances and romantic touches.

Back from Eternity (1956) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Director Farrow joins a small group of filmmakers who were able to remake one of their earlier pictures and this here is pretty much the same story he told in FIVE CAME BACK. The story is pretty simple as a group of people have their plane crash in a South American jungle where they try to survive not only the elements but the possible threat of attack by some natives. They finally catch a couple breaks to where they might be able to get the plane in working order but then they're confronted with a bigger choice on who will get to leave. I can understand why Farrow decided to remake his earlier picture as he made it clear that he thought the special effects could improve the film. I watched FIVE CAME BACK a few years earlier and thought it was a decent little film but I remember thinking that at just 75-minutes there wasn't enough time devoted to the characters to make us really care about them. That is something changed here because the first forty-five minutes is completely devoted to the characters but I think they go a bit overboard. While the remake gives us a lot of character development the majority of it is just boring melodrama stuff that we've seen in countless other disaster pictures. You have the bad guy (Rod Steiger) on his way to a firing squad. You have the pilot (Robert Ryan) who is hiding a dark secret. You got the sexy blonde (Anita Ekberg) who is running towards a questionable job. You have an elderly couple (Beulah Bondi, Cameron Homme) trying to enjoy their final years. You have a young couple (Phyllis Kirk, Gene Berry) who find themselves constantly fighting. We've seen these characters so many times in so many movies that you really don't feel that connected to them. Another problem is that pretty much nothing happens in terms of suspense until the final ten-minutes. At 100-minutes this film takes a long time getting to the conclusion and when it finally does come there's some nice drama but why they didn't try to have a few threats earlier in the picture is beyond me. Performances are good for the most part as all the actors fit their parts nicely and that includes Steiger and that Spanish accent. Farrow mixes in a few new scenes including two of the women fighting in a lake, which really seems out of place and another silly scene involving a crime boss. This RKO picture was hampered with a low-budget, which prevented the crash from being that good but then again I've seen worse. Both FIVE CAME BACK and BACK TO ETERNITY are interesting films but neither one really rises to a level to where I'd call them good. If I had to pick I'd probably go with the original as being the better movie but I think film buffs will enjoy watching both and seeing what Farrow tried to change and improve nearly twenty-years after his first attempt.

I am fortunate enough to have seen both this movie and the original version (FIVE CAME BACK)--both of which were directed by John Farrow. So it was in light of this that I felt pretty disappointed in this film--even though it stars Robert Ryan (one of my favorite actors). Most of it is because there just didn't seem to be a reason for the remake--in no way did it really seem like an improvement over the old material. Instead, it was actually worse and by the mid-1950s, it hardly seemed very original (coming just after John Wayne's THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY). I think that a lot of the problem is that the ensemble cast just didn't seem all that good and there was no gimmick to hook the viewer (other than Anita Ekberg's breasts--which feature quite prominently in this film).

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.