The mere title is deterring, and since it is a true story you expect something like a documentary of poor drama, dry romance if any, flat characters and hardly any action since it is all about a doctor and his crippled patients. Well, you are in for a surprise, because it's all the contrary. It's true that the doctor is quite ordinary, no real character at all, and his patients are just ordinary wounded war casualties, it begins as a rather poor show in a dreary hospital and the patients making hard efforts to make the best of it, but gradually the drama increases - it's after all a Cecil B. DeMille film, and he always knew his business. The drama then keeps increasing steadily all the way to the end, with some interesting flashbacks in between, showing the doctor's previous experiences of both hard luck, great breakthroughs, a busted romance and a tragic but stalwart resignation, while you are still in for some surprises in the end. This is one of Gary Cooper's best films, but keep an eye on the young Dennis O'Keefe as well, as he plays an impressing character with a nice sweetheart. It's an unusual war film dealing so much with sorely wounded patients, many heartbreaks and tragedies, many individual fates but also with plenty of good humour, and the cinematography and colours are brilliant. The film is worth watching and enjoying just for the splendid imagery. Everything happens in Indonesia, and that's not a very common country in American films, adding some exotic flavour especially by the native nurses. Add to this the script by James Hilton, the writer behind "Lost Horizon", "Random Harvest", "Mrs Miniver" and other classics - he enjoyed writing for the cinema, and one of his last novels is actually all about film making - "Morning Journey", which never made a film. But there are so many others.