Forgive a touch of corporate history but I flew 3000 hours over five years on Lincolns equipped with mainly Rolls Royce Merlin 102 and the occasional RR Merlin 85. . Practically all of these hours were in the tropics of Northen Australia.
In that time I had somewhere around 32 engines failures including several total failures caused by "blow-backs" on take off. The reminder were deliberate feathering of props due to glycol coolant overheating. Other Lincoln pilots had occasional engine failures but I have no record of these. Some of the engine failures in the squadron were due to incorrect engine handling put down to cruising at low RPM and high boost outside the manufacturers recommendations.
Obviously in those days engines were not reliable as todays turbo-jets.
The R2800 was mentioned in earlier posts. I did about 1400 hours on the Convair 440 with P&W R2800 engines. I experienced around three total failures all in the cruise, one runway prop on take off and several un-commanded autofeatherings. Now compare that little lot with over 8000 hours on various versions of the 737 and only one engine shut-down and that was precautionary due to loss of oil tank contents.