I heard about this movie while reviewing the user reviews of the original Star Trek, Galileo Seven. It looks like Star Trek took a lot of ideas from this movie, especially about the logical choice made at the end of who will survive. Mr. Spock's command!Now to this movie, it has a good story. Lots of characters and we get to know them. The main problem is in the acting. It was OK, but not great. Lucile Ball and John Caradine should have been used more. Maybe a bit more in the writing. The best actor here was Joseph Calleia as Vasquez. All the actors did a professional job.The ending where he tells the professor he has enough bullets for everyone (3 left) so the headhunters will not capture them alive, to avoid torture. He open the chamber of the gun and there we see 2 bullets. He shoot the professor and his wife dead, then we hear and see some glimpse of the headhunters approaching, not clear, but it's them. And we know what will happen to Vasquez. This is great stuff. The middle section is a bit slow. And the acting/writing could have been more energized. But this is still a solid movie.Rating is a B, for a B movie, 7 stars.

Five Came Back (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) John Farrow directed this disaster film about a plane with twelve members who crash near the Amazon and must try and fix the plane. I was really, really disappointed in this film after hearing some good things about it. One problem is that the film runs just 75-minutes so you've got twelve characters and none of them get enough screen time to really care about any of them. Another problem is what we do get to know about the characters is nothing special as all are nothing more than predictable stereotypes. The cast, which includes Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, John Carradine, Joseph Calleia, Kent Taylor and Patric Knowles keep things moving but the typical screenplay lets them down.

I have always been intrigued by RKO (RKO Radio) Pictures. Since darkness and shadows always held a steady platform for the old studio, I preferred my RKOs in living black-and-white! I have no favorite RKO films in color."FIVE CAME BACK" is a typical RKO Radio Pictures release. Never mind the sometimes "overdone" acting! The story of a plane that has crashed in a South American jungle, with very limited hope of survival for those on board, requires the likes of Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Sir C. Aubrey Smith and others! Remember --- this is 1939. A new version starring Robert Ryan was released by RKO in 1956. This flick was titled "BACK FROM ETERNITIY". It had a bigger budget, and the acting was very good, but the original still stands as my personal favorite. Perhaps it was the simplicity ... check the guide wire on top of the plane as it crashes into the trees! The wire wasn't attached when the double-engine job was in the air! The most obvious "dummy" plane just adds to that touch of movie innocence preceding World War II."FIVE CAME BACK" is a movie-collector's delight. Nothing fancy, just simple fun. It's worth the short viewing time (75-minutes) to see a beautiful, 27-year-old Lucille Ball! Add to that the obvious low-budget (approximately $250,000) and you're set for a very good time "at the movies".As a tag: One wonders why it took Sir C. Aubrey Smith half the film time to remove his coat in the overheated jungle! As I recall, he never removed his tie during the miserably hot weeks at the crash site!

***SPOILERS*** Early disaster-like movie that has some dozen or so people stranded in the dangerous head-hunter infested and uncharted South American jungle after their plane crash landed in a violent tropical storm.With only enough food and drinking water to last for about a month the plane passengers try to fix the disabled plane so that they can fly out of the valley that their stuck in before the head-hunters get a lock on them and move in for the kill.The movie "Five came Back" has an unlikely hero in the person of convicted assassin and anarchist Vasques, Joesph Calleia. Vasques is was to be brought back to Panama by bounty hunter Mr. Chimp, John Carradine,to be hung for his crimes against that country's leadership. We get to see Vasquez lose his hostility to humanity and the world at large when he's confronted with the kindness shown to him by the elderly Professor Henry, and his wife Martha, Spengler, C. Aubrey Smith & Elisabeth Risdon. If there were more like you, Vasquez heart-fully tells Prof. Spengler, in the world there would be less like me.Mr. Chimp who's interest in the $5,000.00 reward for turning in Vasquez is superseded by his wanting to save his life from being captured and beheaded by the head-hunters. This fear on Chimp's part has him make a blind and drunken run for it in the dark and unfriendly jungle, only to be killed by a native's poison dart blow gun. The rich and arrogant playboy Judson Ellis, Patrick Knowles,who's eloping with his sweetheart Alice Melbourne, Wendy Barrie,becomes panic-stricken when he realizes that his money can't buy him everything; as Vasquez tells him that he's, together with himself and the Spengler's who volunteered to stay, to be one of those left behind. the rest of the stranded passengers and crew which includes Alice and the planes pilot Bill Brooks, Chester Morris, and co-pilot Joe (Kent Taylor), whom Alice fell in love with. Together with young five-year-old Tommy Mulvaney, Casey Johson, who's dad, Pat O'Malley, was just the victim of a mob rub-out in San Francisco together. There's also a 28 year-old pre-"I Love Lucy" Lucille Ball as the tough-talking dame with the heart of gold Peggy Noland. The now ready to fly plane is to take take off as soon the jungle drums stop beating and the head-hunters slowly move in to finish the survivor's off one by one. Tommy's guardian and his dad's best friend Pete, Allen Jenkins, was also one of those passengers who didn't make it back when he was shot and killed by a poison dart from a head-hunter's blow gun.Vasquez telling Professor Spengler that he has three bullets left in his revolver, to do them and himself in before the head-hunters get a hold of them, really has only two and uses them on the elderly couple. We then see the plane, with the five who came back, fly off over the jungle sky and into the safety of modern 20th century civilization.With Vasquez himself feeling in some strange sort of way a sense of freedom and redemption due to the unique turn of events that he finds himself in. By outliving his captor Mr. Chimp and denying his life to his Panamanian executioners, Vasquez now faces death at the hands of the jungle head-hunters. Whom to them the only crime that he committed was not being a member of their tribe.