Five Came Back (1939) on Netflix
Nine passengers board a flight to Panama City, among them Peggy Nolan and Vasquez. A storm blows the airliner off course, and Bill and Joe crash-land it in jungle.
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- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.1/102,646 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Nine passengers and a crew of three take off from Los Angeles for Panama City aboard the Silver Queen. Among the travelers are Judson Ellis and Alice Melbourne, running away to marry against their parents' wishes; Professor Henry Spengler and his wife Martha; the gangster's small son Tommy Mulvaney, in the care of gunman Pete; Peggy Nolan, whose past is shady; and Vasquez, an anarchist being extradited to face a death sentence, watched by his guard Crimp. Bill and Joe fly the plane, with Larry as steward. A nighttime storm batters the airliner and one engine fails, so the pilots bring it down in jungle. At daybreak Professor Spengler recognizes Amazon plants, meaning the crash site lies far south of the search area, with mountains between the group and the nearest settlement.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Five Came Back (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Lucille Ball clashed with director John Farrow over his harsh tactics and was reportedly upset by unwanted advances from co-star Chester Morris; when two black widow spiders dropped out of a tree onto her head, she became extremely upset and left the set screaming.
- Victor McLaglen and Charles Coburn were originally announced as cast members of Five Came Back; Lucille Ball, Patric Knowles and Kent Taylor were last-minute replacements for Ann Sothern, Alan Marshall and Alan Baxter, and John Carradine was borrowed from 20th Century Fox.
- Flying shots in Five Came Back used a miniature of the Capelis XC-12 because the studio's insurance company had permanently grounded the real aircraft; the plane had appeared in ground roles in the 1942 film Flying Tigers, starring John Wayne, and was reportedly scrapped around 1950.
- RKO bought former journalist Richard Carroll's original story in April 1938, saying it would be a probable vehicle for Cary Grant, but the film was made as a B picture instead, though better budgeted than usual for the type.
- Five Came Back is widely viewed as having paved the way for the disaster epics of the 1970s, such as Airport and The Poseidon Adventure, and it also served as a partial inspiration for the TV sitcom Gilligan's Island.
- Five Came Back is credited with inspiring the 1967 Star Trek episode "The Galileo Seven"; Star Trek was produced by Lucille Ball through Desilu and filmed on the old RKO lot.
- Though Five Came Back was primarily filmed on a back lot, director John Farrow insisted on a realistic jungle and had trees imported to flesh out the jungle landscape on the sound stage.
