Return from Nowhere (1944) User Reviews

The Passing Memory

[boblipton · 5/10 · 28 May 2020]

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 interest in 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.

An old song from the 1900s starts out something like "Roll out the bacon . . . "

[pixrox1 · 6/10 · 11 November 2018]

" . . . we'll have a barrel of grease." Sizzling bacon is perhaps the highlight of RETURN FROM NOWHERE. This live action short comes from MGM, a movie studio always obsessed with "Bringing home the bacon." According to RETURN FROM NOWHERE, all you have to do to come up with a couple thousand bucks (or $1.13 million Today, adjusted for inflation) is to slap some bacon in a skillet and fry it up. That should prove enough to prompt even a shell-shocked war vet in a semi-vegetative state to unearth a fortune squirreled away for a rainy day (or even an afternoon featuring very high humidity), RETURN FROM NOWHERE promises. I suspect that this entire episode of THE PASSING PARADE is heavily subsidized by the American Pork Association (and I'm talking about more than a few slabs of bacon!).

Lesser Entry from the Series

[Michael_Elliott · 9 May 2011]

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).

"Why didn't anyone take pity on this poor sailor . . . "

[cricket30 · 7/10 · 29 May 2020]

" . . . and drive him to the nearest gun range?" many if not most viewers will scream at their screens after watching RETURN FROM NOWHERE. The unfortunate bloke at the center of this tale has survived having his ship torpedoed out from under him, presumably by the hidden scourge of a submarine. But because many Naval enlistees probably graduate from boot camp without getting a whiff of gunpowder, the shell-shocked erstwhile tar has to resort to a "money belt" to stash his cash, without so much as a second-hand military assault rifle passed down from an older brother in the Marines. The recent feature film AMERICAN SNIPER demonstrated how important such familiar working implements are for one-time servicemen. Packing heat allows them to regain the sort of inner peace harking back to their boyhood days. Lacking an essential piece, "Alan Blank" literally loses his mind. To add in salt to injury, the quacks treating Alan ply him with fried eggs, instead of prescribing a medicinal shooting iron! RETURN FROM NOWHERE implies this sort of ovoid malpractice can work once in a million times, but I think it's far more likely that this live-action short will inspire those partaking to generously support their local chapter of BANGS (Broke Americans Need Gun Stamps)!