Not a bad B movie, but why did they remake it? I suppose because it's cheaper to recycle stories that the studio already owns than to buy new ones. Even the title seems designed by a bricoleur. ("From Here to Eternity" (1953) to "Back From Eternity" (1956).)
The director is the same and so is the story but, alas, the pace is slower and heavier. In the original, no time was wasted on padding. The actors spoke their lines quickly, as if rushing through them to save a few frames of expensive film stock. This one carries with it a kind of languid lack of energy, as if everyone involved in the production had caught yellow fever. More time is spent on romance and less on practical matters.
Further, we get more emphasis on a few of the characters who must explain their current state of disillusion or develop their growing love for one another. It's less of an ensemble movie than the 1939 version. Just two examples. Robert Ryan gets far more screen time than Chester Morris did in the same role. And Gene Barry's role as the spoiled, cowardly, rich drunk is reduced to a few nasty lines.
And the evolution of the group's self consciousness is weakened by the absence of a montage in the original, in which we see everyone working happily away at their tasks, laughing and getting to know each other. There is no such animation here, only fatigue.
Robert Ryan's part, the pilot, is given greater emphasis but his specialty is doing an impression of a boiler whose valves are closed and which is just about to explode at the seams. And here he more or less walks through the part, unusual for him because of his inherent dynamism. Rod Steiger is more important than Joseph Callaeia in the original too. The old professor is no longer the expert on Jivaro headhunting. Steiger is now the authority. That's fine for Steiger, but it leaves the elderly professor twisting in the wind. Just exactly what the hell does he TEACH anyway? Nobody seems to care.
In some ways this film makes more of an impression than the earlier one. The airplane is bigger, for instance, as are Anita Ekberg's bosoms. And it has one or two unforgettable scenes. The beautiful, wooden Phyllis Kirk helping the guys heave the airplane off the ground, tottering in the middle of the Amazon jungle in her chic outfit and high heels. Kirk and Ekberg having a heck of a good time fighting in a studio-bound pool of jungle water, unable to stop from laughing as they wrestle and bat at each other. Come to think of it, any normal man wouldn't mind joining the fight. How about some mud and bikinis in the NEXT remake?
The director is the same and so is the story but, alas, the pace is slower and heavier. In the original, no time was wasted on padding. The actors spoke their lines quickly, as if rushing through them to save a few frames of expensive film stock. This one carries with it a kind of languid lack of energy, as if everyone involved in the production had caught yellow fever. More time is spent on romance and less on practical matters.
Further, we get more emphasis on a few of the characters who must explain their current state of disillusion or develop their growing love for one another. It's less of an ensemble movie than the 1939 version. Just two examples. Robert Ryan gets far more screen time than Chester Morris did in the same role. And Gene Barry's role as the spoiled, cowardly, rich drunk is reduced to a few nasty lines.
And the evolution of the group's self consciousness is weakened by the absence of a montage in the original, in which we see everyone working happily away at their tasks, laughing and getting to know each other. There is no such animation here, only fatigue.
Robert Ryan's part, the pilot, is given greater emphasis but his specialty is doing an impression of a boiler whose valves are closed and which is just about to explode at the seams. And here he more or less walks through the part, unusual for him because of his inherent dynamism. Rod Steiger is more important than Joseph Callaeia in the original too. The old professor is no longer the expert on Jivaro headhunting. Steiger is now the authority. That's fine for Steiger, but it leaves the elderly professor twisting in the wind. Just exactly what the hell does he TEACH anyway? Nobody seems to care.
In some ways this film makes more of an impression than the earlier one. The airplane is bigger, for instance, as are Anita Ekberg's bosoms. And it has one or two unforgettable scenes. The beautiful, wooden Phyllis Kirk helping the guys heave the airplane off the ground, tottering in the middle of the Amazon jungle in her chic outfit and high heels. Kirk and Ekberg having a heck of a good time fighting in a studio-bound pool of jungle water, unable to stop from laughing as they wrestle and bat at each other. Come to think of it, any normal man wouldn't mind joining the fight. How about some mud and bikinis in the NEXT remake?