Reeling Backward: "Five Came Back" (1939)

"Five Came Back" is not to be confused with the 2017 Netflix documentary series about five noted Hollywood filmmakers who made propaganda movies for the U.S. government during World War II. It's a 1939 harrowing adventure story about a dozen people whose plane crashes in the Amazon and they have to struggle to survive while hashing out various interpersonal relationships and clashes.

The premise reminded me a lot of "Flight of the Phoenix," one of my dad's favorites, so I was eager to check it out.

It's a prototypical B-picture with some solid talent behind it. One of the screenwriters (along with Jerry Cady and Nathanael West) was legendary script man Dalton Trumbo. Director John Farrow helmed some notable pictures, including the film noir classic "The Big Clock," which was later remade into "No Way Out."

Farrow also won an Oscar for his screenplay of "Around the World in 80 Days" -- which is actually better than it's given credit for, though still a solid contender for the title of "Worst Best Picture."

The cast of "Five" included iconic "that guy" character actor John Carradine, with his signature scarecrow frame and scowl, who went on to sire an entire dynasty of thespians.

And it was one of the biggest early screen roles for Lucille Ball, before she switched to comedy and conquered television. She plays Peggy, a classic screen type: hard-bitten moll who's had all sorts of troubles with men, and finds herself judged by the high-class types.

Carradine is Crimp -- great name, that -- a "detective" who's really a glorified bounty hunter. He's got a $5,000 claim on Vasquez (Joseph Calleia), an anarchist who's being extradited back to Panama to be executed for his role in the assassination of a government official. That's about 90,000 smackers in today's dollars, so he's very keen on making the plane to Panama City.

Vasquez turns out to be very cagey, managing to swipe Crimp's gun away from him while being processed at the police station. In many ways he's the central character of the story, a man who's committed despicable acts yet winds up as the figure with the largest accrual of moral authority.

Chester Morris plays Bill, the thick-necked and, initially, thick-headed captain who continues to lead the party after the crash due to engine failure. Peggy takes a shine to him, though his hard heart takes some convincing. Rakish copilot Joe (Kent Brooks) has eyes for one of the passengers, Alice (Wendy Barrie), who's the secretary to wealthy heir Judson Ellis (Patric Knowles).

It's eventually revealed they're eloping together to escape the media glare and disapproval of their parents. Judson turns out to be, along with Crimp, the least adaptable of the survivors, quickly taking to drink -- he's got an entire suitcase packed with booze -- and despair.

Dick Hogan is Larry, the steward who's sucked out the door during the crash. (Blond guys always bite it early in adventure movies.) Casey Johnson plays Tommy, a little boy of about 3 who is the son of a mob leader on the run. Allen Jenkins plays Pete, the gun tough charged with protecting the tyke.

When the passengers (prior to the crash) hear a news account that Tommy's dad has been gunned down, the group takes on a sort of collective parenting of the boy. At first Pete won't let Peggy play mother to him, but eventually she proves her mettle.

The flight scenes are certainly a relic of their times, both for the crudity of the not-so-special effects -- their plane, The Silver Queen, looks like a child's model (and not an expensive one) -- and the depiction of air travel in the 1930s. People move about the cabin freely, the booze flows just the same, and there's no lock on the door to the cockpit, which is invaded several times by passengers.

The by-today's-standards huge chairs include a fold-down bed for each person. Joe has a pervy scene where he responds to Alice's buzzer about a stuck ventilator by flirting and invading her personal space.

The scenes on the ground are also a bit funny in their near-total avoidance of verisimilitude. Other than Bill's sleeves becoming ripped to reveal his thick arms, nobody's attire changes considerably despite weeks on the ground in stifling jungle heat. I lol'd several times at the women clip-clopping around the underbrush in their high heels. The men don't even take off their suit jackets the first few days.

Despite crash-landing in the trees (without the landing gear down), Bill and Joe commence with making repairs, this being the day when the sky jockeys who drove the planes apparently were all expert mechanics, too. They somehow manage to clear hundreds of yards of jungle for a runway with improvised tools.

But it all comes down to the proverbial "too much weight," so in the end they have to decide who goes and who stays -- after their numbers have been sufficiently thinned by the heard-but-never-seen cannibals, of course.

Some of the story plays out with predictable precision. Like the evolution by which Alice realizes Judson is no good and gloms onto the creepy-but-noble Joe. And the way Crimp and Judson both seem determined to have run-ins with the other men, so it's only a matter of time before they square off with each other.

In a hoot-worthy example of inept stunt choreography, during their fight Carradine actually starts falling backward before Knowles' mimed punch comes anywhere near him.

But I appreciated the unexpected cerebral and emotional portions of the story. The Spenglers find themselves coming to appreciate Vasquez, who points out that while the others are desperate to escape back to their lives, his destination lies with a hangman's noose. Without the headhunter subplot, my guess is he would have chosen to stay behind, assuming he escapes Crimp's greedy clutches.

In the end it's Vasquez who is allowed to decide which five people will get to ride away on the plane. Though his choices are pretty unoriginal -- two pairs of lovebirds and a kid -- the way he arrives at them hold genuine tension and intrigue.

"Five Came Back" is the sort of largely forgotten picture that strives beyond the shortcomings of its B-picture entertainment value and delivers a memorable experience.

Reeling Backward: "Three Came Back" (1950)

How surprised I was to find a World War II POW drama told from a woman's perspective, and almost 50 years prior to "Paradise Road," a high-profile -- and somewhat disappointing -- film from 1996 starring Frances McDormand, Cate Blanchett and Glenn Close.

"Three Came Home" stars Claudette Colbert, one of the biggest stars of the 1930s and '40s, though her popularity was starting to wane by 1950. The movie also stars Sessue Hayakawa as the Japanese camp commander, a role very similar to the one he would play seven years later in "The Bridge on the River Kwai," for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

His Col. Suga is much more sympathetic than Saito, the colonel from "Bridge." Suga is a stern but fair hand, even inviting Agnes Newton Keith (Colbert) into his office to share tea. Keith was a real-life American author, married to a Brit, living in North Borneo when the Japanese invaded, and Col. Suga asks for an autographed copy of one of her books.

The depiction of the Japanese in the film is often harsh, but somewhat nuanced considering the era. At least there are no Japanese wearing Coke-bottle glasses and speaking English in a racist ching-chong patter. But many of the guards are shown to be brutal bullies who beat the women purely for the enjoyment of it. In one scene, a guard demands a woman stick out her tongue, and when she does he punches her under the chin, causing her to injure herself.

Since the film is based on Keith's autobiographical book about her experiences as a prisoner of war, I have no reason to doubt the veracity of these events.

Colbert gives a layered performance as a brave woman who spent most of her captivity in fear. Her husband (Patric Knowles) and the other men are kept in a different camp, while she must look after their 4-year-old son, George. Interestingly, the boy is played by a single child actor, Mark Keuning, despite the fact that the story spans several years. I guess director Jean Negulesco didn't want to confuse the audience by suddenly having another kid show up.

Negulesco had a rough start to his career. He was fired off his first film, "Singapore Women," though he still received a screen credit. His next movie was "The Maltese Falcon," which he filmed for two months before being replaced by John Huston. He eventually made a name for himself, working regularly for the next 20 years, including an Oscar nomination for "Johnny Belinda."

There's one great scene that will linger with me. The women are about to be sent to a distant camp, and are allowed a few minutes to see their husbands before leaving. But they line them up across from a small gully, so they can only reach out far enough to clasp hands. It's quite an image, that long row of almost-embraces.

Another harrowing sequence (earlier on) has Agnes sneaking out of camp for a brief tryst with her husband under a tall palm tree. I think the scene where she sneaks through the brush on her belly while a Japanese soldier stalks her inspired Steven Spielberg for a similar moment in "Empire of the Sun."

The film's most controversial section is easy to name. Agnes is attacked one night by Japanese soldier intending rape, though she fights him off. She makes the her "bravest mistake" by telling the colonel about it, who is most disturbed at the accusation. Since Agnes can't identify her assailant, there's nothing to be gained except riling up the soldiers against her.

While Suga is away, the brutish lieutenant has her beaten to get her to sign a confession that she made up the whole story. Knowing that this would substantiate a case for false accusation, and effectively mean signing her own death warrant, Agnes refuses and nearly has her arm broken and her ribs kicked in. Worse yet, the lieutenant warns her not to tell the other prisoners about her treatment, lest even worse punishment follow.

I can only imagine how these scenes must have played in America in 1950, when painful memories of Japanese war crimes were still fresh. The scenes are still hard to watch even 60 years later.

3 stars out of four