Return from Nowhere

Return from Nowhere (1944)

** (out of 4)

One of the weaker entries in MGM's Passing Parade series has Morris Ankrum playing a doctor who spends his days treating wounded soldiers who are suffering from memory loss. One soldier can't seem to remember his past but he does remember bits and pieces of dreams so the doctor tries to re-create these dreams so that the soldier can remember who he is. This is one of the most disappointing films I've seen in the John Nesbitt series because in the end it really doesn't get anything done. We're told that this doctor has worked with all sorts of people helping them get their memory back yet we only see the one case here and I can't say it impressed me too much. The experiment had the soldier dreaming of bacon and eggs so the next time he goes to sleep the doctor cooks bacon and eggs in his room. This is just one example of what happens here but in the end it just didn't add up to any sort of entertainment. Fans will notice a young Peter Cushing playing one of the people waking up from their dream but this is just footage lifted from an earlier Passing Parade short called DREAMS (which was also used in another PP short called THE WOMAN IN THE HOUSE).

Don Defore's wit, timing and dry delivery shine in this parody. Well done.

Defore stars as a Merchant Marine that survives a shiprwreck at sea. He suffers from PTSD that makes him forget where he hid his cash. Cash that he wanted to use to "buy the farm." This short farce is ripe with comedic double meaning gems like that while sprinkling in social commentary on prejudice so prevalent in the early forties.

Morris Ankrum co-stars as a doctor and plays it straight during most of the film. Ankrum is best known as the foil to Ham Burger (played by William Talman) on the television series "Perry Mason."

Don Defore is a merchant marine, rescued from a torpedoed ship. He's gone to a farm to purchase it, but he cannot remember where he put his money. Committed to a hospital, the doctor in charge performs an experiment to try to revive that memory.

It's not a very good episode of the long-running MGM series, produced and narrated by John Nesbitt. It holds some interest in the matter of psychoanalysis that was becoming popular in movies in this period; perhaps the best known example is Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND.

Besides Defore, Morris Ankrum appears as the doctor. Because, like many in the series, the actors perform in dumb show, while Nesbitt describes what happens, it's interesting as a survival of silent movie technique of the "illustrated text" method. Defore's performance is too broad.