Few films have been made about the Dutch East Indies theatre of World War Two - presumably because it was the sight of so much Allied defeat - so it gives this big budget de Mille epic considerable novelty. Australians will get an extra kick out of hearing the references to Australia, and the fact the final scenes are set here (even if it doesn't feel very Australian).
This is an odd movie - de Mille rarely used stories ripped from the headlines, but no doubt he wanted to do his bit (when he wasn't tracking down communists) and the story of Dr Wassell was one of the few feel good tales during the early days of the Pacific War. It wasn't a terribly strong story, though - while Wassell was clearly brave staying with his men as everyone was being evacuated, when push comes to shove all he really did was hang around with them for a few days until they could all get a lift later.
So de Mille pads it out with flashbacks to Wassell's time at home, falling in love with Laraine Day's photo, going to China and researching the bug, impotently struggling to get anywhere with Day; there's also subplots among his men - one of whom (Dennis O'Keefe in a showy role) is loved by that old throwback, the half-caste nurse full of simple devotion (you can practically see the target across her head), the other whom (Elliot Reid best known for being Jane Russell's inadequate love interest in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) rather touchingly is in love with a Dutch nurse engaged to a Dutch soldier (but it's okay - he's dead keen to lay down his life so she can go off with the yank).
Gary Cooper is especially annoying here. Once again he plays a big wet sook who refuses to tell Day he's interested in her (for no good reason); he won't propose because some other doctor beats him to the punch discovering a cure for a disease (as if it matters), he doesn't do much stuff to help his men except pray to god and he does far too many "comic" double takes. Why do people claim this guy was a great screen actor? It escapes me.
Okay, now I've spent a few paragraphs bagging this movie I should admit I actually enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for stories about stragglers during a time of mass retreat and panic, and the scenes of the evacuation of Java are very well done. It's also got some impressive spectacle (teaming extras clambering into boats and so on) and the subplots involving the soldiers may be melodramatic and hokey but they still work. I really liked the multi-national aspect of it - Americans, Brits, Javanese, Chinese, Australians... you didn't often see that in Hollywood films and it's refreshing. It's also moving because it really happened - so many of these brave kids (and adults and old people) died.
This is overlong, occasionally silly and Cooper is a pain, but while it's not one of de Mille's better known pictures I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.
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