This is a good role for Gary Cooper. He's tall, sun-tanned, speaks with what is supposed to be an Arkansas accent although it doesn't approach the saturation level of his Sergeant York, and is a humanitarian doctor with an inventive streak. He's also nattily dressed, but that's hardly worth mentioning since just about everyone in the movie is dressed in clean, pressed clothes. Combat has no effect on their grooming.
Basically, Dr. Wassell, formerly an investigator of snail-vectored diseases in China, joins the Navy and is voluntarily left behind with a few nurses and a dozen or so patients too disabled to walk about the last ship departing the island of Java, threatened by the Japanese in 1941.
The wounded are all sailors from the USS Marblehead and Houston, which were sunk in the battle of the Java Sea. The Japanese blew the American-British-Dutch-Australian force out of the water. That is to say, we lost, which is to say you will see multiple movies about the battle of Midway (we won) but absolutely none about the battle of the Java Sea.
There are two scenes of violence. In the first, the hospital housing the wounded is bombed by Japanese planes. It's quite well handled. The ordinary war flick of the time would have multiple bombs falling at once, lots of outdoor models with paper-machie palms trees doing flips, and heroic Allies pumping machine guns up in the air. But DeMille doesn't do it that way. Everything is seen from inside a single hospital ward, the men and staff hiding under mattresses. There are only three or four bombs, with intervals between them, and they're nothing more than a long and eerie whistle before they hit. The first lands far away. The second and third are more of a jolt, and the last one blows in the windows, upends some of the hospital beds, and kills a patient. Instead of mindless action we get a scene full of suspense.
The middle part of the movie involves a long and painful journey by trucks and other British vehicles across Java to another port. One man -- and his devoted native girlfriend -- run off the road in their jeep and find themselves surrounded by Japanese soldiers. "They no take prisoners -- in jungle." "I got an idea. Hand me that Tommy gun," he tells her, eyes blazing, and there is a fade out on Hoppy spraying lead around in the general direction of the camera. Sure, it's a cliché, but again DeMille spares us the shots of a thousand barbaric monkeys tumbling over as they charge the doomed couple.
Gary Cooper, as I say, is neat. He manages to save the remaining wounded and link up again with his lost love, Lorraine Day. He's awarded the Navy Cross (I think) for his efforts.
A long movie, but not a bad one for its time.
Basically, Dr. Wassell, formerly an investigator of snail-vectored diseases in China, joins the Navy and is voluntarily left behind with a few nurses and a dozen or so patients too disabled to walk about the last ship departing the island of Java, threatened by the Japanese in 1941.
The wounded are all sailors from the USS Marblehead and Houston, which were sunk in the battle of the Java Sea. The Japanese blew the American-British-Dutch-Australian force out of the water. That is to say, we lost, which is to say you will see multiple movies about the battle of Midway (we won) but absolutely none about the battle of the Java Sea.
There are two scenes of violence. In the first, the hospital housing the wounded is bombed by Japanese planes. It's quite well handled. The ordinary war flick of the time would have multiple bombs falling at once, lots of outdoor models with paper-machie palms trees doing flips, and heroic Allies pumping machine guns up in the air. But DeMille doesn't do it that way. Everything is seen from inside a single hospital ward, the men and staff hiding under mattresses. There are only three or four bombs, with intervals between them, and they're nothing more than a long and eerie whistle before they hit. The first lands far away. The second and third are more of a jolt, and the last one blows in the windows, upends some of the hospital beds, and kills a patient. Instead of mindless action we get a scene full of suspense.
The middle part of the movie involves a long and painful journey by trucks and other British vehicles across Java to another port. One man -- and his devoted native girlfriend -- run off the road in their jeep and find themselves surrounded by Japanese soldiers. "They no take prisoners -- in jungle." "I got an idea. Hand me that Tommy gun," he tells her, eyes blazing, and there is a fade out on Hoppy spraying lead around in the general direction of the camera. Sure, it's a cliché, but again DeMille spares us the shots of a thousand barbaric monkeys tumbling over as they charge the doomed couple.
Gary Cooper, as I say, is neat. He manages to save the remaining wounded and link up again with his lost love, Lorraine Day. He's awarded the Navy Cross (I think) for his efforts.
A long movie, but not a bad one for its time.