Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Chris Gaskin I have now seen Back From Eternity several times and find it an exiting and gripping thriller.A motley collection of passengers including a young boy, a murderer, an elderly couple and a blonde lass board a dodgy aircraft, not knowing further danger lies ahead when a storm forces the plane to crash land in a very remote and unexplored jungle, inhabited by cannibals! After eventually fixing the aircraft, only 5 of the group will be able to escape...This movie has a great cast with Robert Ryan as the pilot, 1950s glamour queen Anita Eckberg, a great performance by Rod Steiger as the murder and Gene Barry (War of the Worlds).Back From Eternity is well worth a look if you haven't seen it. Excellent.

classicsoncall It's been a while since I saw the 1939 original "Five Came Back", but in trying to make a quick mental comparison I don't find much difference between the two pictures. Most of the characters retain the same names, the addition of youngster Tommy Malone (Jon Provost) might be one of the more significant differences. Anita Ekberg as a prostitute heading to Boca Grande comes across a bit more believable than Lucille Ball in the earlier movie. As I mentioned in my review of that one, I thought she was more of a hard luck gal than a hooker but you didn't have to read between any lines regarding Ekberg's Rena character here.Funny, but when I saw Jesse White's name in the cast list, that became one of the draws to catching this one. I didn't think I ever actually saw the long time Maytag repair man in a movie before, but there WAS that Twilight Zone episode (Once Upon a Time) in which he previewed that role. His character here is sort of a guardian for the kid Tommy, who's father made headlines as a gangster who was shot early in the film. I don't know how that scenario had anything to do with anything, other than to make Tommy an orphan and a prime candidate to make it out of the jungle when the plane got fixed.Most of the other characters play out the way they did in "Five Came Back" with the notable inclusion of a cat fight between Ekberg's character and Phyllis Kirk's Louise. As they tumble into a jungle pond, both players emerge laughing it up when co-pilot Joe Brooks (Keith Andes) comes on the scene. Considering how the fight started over Louise's budding romance with Joe, it didn't end up very realistic, but they must have figured the result was so outlandish they couldn't help themselves and it was just left in the story that way.With both pictures, the struggle over who makes it out of the jungle merits kudos for dramatic writing and a thoughtful exploration of character motives. The elder Spangler couple makes a brave decision, as Rod Steiger's Vasquel decides to face the consequences of staying behind in hostile territory. One can conjure up an alternative fate for Vasquel if one so desires, but it's almost certainly his personal sacrifice that inspires the closing moments of the picture.

Gunn I've been waiting for years for "Back from Eternity" to come out on DVD. It, along with many other older movies, is on my Website King Spud's Movie & TV Pages on my Up to the Minute Page. For a time many films on my List were coming out on DVD, but of late nothing, save The African Queen has been released. Back from Eternity is an absolutely terrific little film, albeit a B movie. It has an excellent cast led by Robert Ryan and Rod Steiger in an early role. The rest of the cast are doing some of their best work, Beulah Bondi, Cameron PrudHomme, Jesse White, Phyllis Kirk, Gene Barry, Fred Clark, little Jon Provost and especially Keith Andes, who makes one wonder why he wasn't a bigger star. This is an edge of your seat film, a real nail-biter. The tension builds as the pilots and passengers scuttle to repair the downed plane's engine while the danger of an attack by Jivaro headhunters increases. A fine score by the great Franz Waxman also helps elevate this film to almost classic stature. I saw it as a kid and never forgot it. After all these years it was great to see it has held up to all my expectations of its thrills.

sol1218 **SPOILERS** Remake of the 1939 classic "Five Came Home" by the same director John Farrow with Rod Steiger stealing the acting honors as convicted criminal Vasquez being sent back to Boca Grande, in Pararico, to face the firing squad for the attempted murder of the country's dictator General Gomaz.Getting caught in a violent lightning storm over the unexplored jungles of South America the PLA passenger plane, minus it's stewardess who fell overboard, crash lands with it's engines in operation but in the middle of headhunter country. Trying to get the plane fixed before the local headhunters get a beat on the planes passengers and crew tempers start to flair between bounty hunter Crimp, Fread Clark, and his prisoner Vasquez. Crimp is a bit taken by the change of events with Vasquez now the man who's in charge, since Vasquez is an expert on the habits of the South American headhunters, not him starts to panic. Crimp ends up running off in the unfriendly jungle with the only gun among the people on the plane and ends up losing his head over it. As the days go by it becomes evident that there's no rescue party on the way to save them and both the pilot and co-pilot Bill Lonagan & Joe Brooks, Robert Ryan & Kieth Andes, work around the clock fixing the planes engines. Everything possibly is done to get the plane airborne before the drums start to beat meaning that the headhunters are on their way to finish off the planes survivors.Tense drama in the South American Amazon basin with a stellar cast knowing that the end is near but not exactly who among them will end up being killed by the headhunters. It's decided that only five will come back since the planes engines can't carry any more weight. The disabled airplane has to have as light as possible a payload in order to take off and fly over the dense jungle mountain range to become fully airborne. Gut-wrenching final where it's decided who will live and who will die, by being left behind, at the hands of the headhunters and for the most part Vasquez and the elderly couple Henry & Martha Spangler, Cameron Prud'Homm & Beula Bondi voluntarily stay behind to meet their fate. The Spanglers, in their 70's, knowing that they don't have long to live anyway and Vasquez facing execution. The movie "Back from Eternity" also has a love triangle between Jud Ellis, Gene Barry, and his fiancé Louise Melhorn, Phillis Kirk, and co-pilot Joe Brooks. The poor and terrified Jud ends up coming out on the losing end. Jud gets gunned down, trying to get on the plane, at the end of the movie by Vasquez with his bride-to-be Louise not bothering to come to his aid but not even giving Jud as much a second glance as he lay dying! There's also the gorgeous and voluptuous Anita Ekberg, the former Miss Sweden, as singer and bar girl Rena who's trying to get her papers straighten out in order to become a legal American citizen. There's also little six year old Jon Provost, of Lassie fame, as Tommy Malone the son of a Las Vegas mobster who just got knocked off. Tommy is being looked after and protected by his late dad's best friend and right hand man Jesse white, Pete Boswick. It turns out that Rena, not Jesse, ends up on the departing plane with little Tommy as the movie "Back From Eternity" comes to an end.