Directed by:
John FarrowCinematography:
Nicholas MusuracaComposer:
Roy WebbCast:
Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Wendy Barrie, John Carradine, Joseph Calleia, C. Aubrey Smith, Kent Taylor, Patric Knowles, Frank Faylen, Allen Jenkins (more)Plots(1)
Among Nathanael West’s most significant screen credits is co-writer to John Farrow’s Five Came Back, a tense proto- disaster film about a South American bound aircraft that crashes in the jungle and, as the suggestive title makes clear, can only accommodate less than half of its twelve passengers on its hobbled return flight. “But who?” the audience is asked to ponder while judging the motley gang of intellectuals, criminals and innocents fatefully united on the rickety craft and portrayed by a rich cast of character actors and rising stars including Chester Morris as a hard-boiled pilot, C. Aubrey Smith, predictably, as a distinguished professor and Lucille Ball in a revealing role as a tender hearted “fallen woman”, a sensitive performance that brought new attention to her talents. While co-writer Dalton Trumbo’s Leftist leanings are clearly expressed in the self-righteous figure of the noble anarchist, West’s lurid humanism is rendered vivid in the sweaty, ribald intensity of undesired human intimacy and the ominous tom-toms of the unseen but ever-approaching cannibals that recall the blood-thirsty throng exploding in violent rage at the apocalyptic end of The Day of the Locust. (Viennale)
(more)Cast
Chester Morris
USA
Best movies:
The Bat Whispers (1930)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
The Divorcee (1930)
Lucille Ball
USA
Best movies:
Trumbo (2015) - a.f.
Top Hat (1935)
Stage Door (1937)
Wendy Barrie
UK
Best movies:
Dead End (1937)
Day-Time Wife (1939)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
John Carradine
USA
Best movies:
Captains Courageous (1937)
The Invisible Man (1933)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Joseph Calleia
Malta
Best movies:
After the Thin Man (1936)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Gilda (1946)
C. Aubrey Smith
UK
Best movies:
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Rebecca (1940)
Madame Curie (1943)
Kent Taylor
USA
Best movies:
The Sign of the Cross (1932)
One Hour with You (1932)
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
Patric Knowles
UK
Best movies:
Band of Angels (1957)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)
Frank Faylen
USA
Best movies:
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Edison, the Man (1940)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Allen Jenkins
USA
Best movies:
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
The Front Page (1974)
Ball of Fire (1941)
Frank Mills
USA
Best movies:
The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952)
Limelight (1952)
Fury (1936)
Robert Homans
USA
Best movies:
Fury (1936)
It Started with Eve (1941)
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
Selmer Jackson
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
It Started with Eve (1941)
Sudden Fear (1952)
Elisabeth Risdon
UK
Best movies:
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Random Harvest (1942)
Pedro de Cordoba
USA
Best movies:
The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
The Song of Bernadette (1943)
The Sea Hawk (1940)
Tiny Jones
UK
Best movies:
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
The Invisible Man (1933)
Pat O'Malley
USA
Best movies:
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Gentleman Jim (1942)
Bud Geary
USA
Best movies:
The Great Dictator (1940)
Citizen Kane (1941)
The Talk of the Town (1942)