Directed by Richard Thorpe, with a screenplay by Paul Osborn that was based on the play by Allan Kenward, this nearly all female cast war drama tells the harrowing story of thirteen women on Bataan during World War II just prior to its being overrun by Japanese forces in 1942.
Led by two veteran nurses, Lieutenant Mary Smith 'Smitty' (Margaret Sullavan) and Captain Alice Marsh (Fay Bainter), nine novice (e.g. only first aid expertise) volunteers receive on-the-job training (and quinine) to do the best they can to assist the officers with the continuous supply of American G.I. casualties on this precarious peninsula in the Philippine Islands. Connie Gilchrist, who plays the steady cook with a dry wit Sadie, and Marsha Hunt, who plays an already trained civilian that's calm and reasoned under all circumstances, Flo Norris, are the other two women.
The volunteers are streetwise Pat Conlin (Ann Sothern), former burlesque stripper Grace Lambert (Joan Blondell), fashion writer from a wealthy family Connie Booth (Ella Raines), attractive brunette Helen Domeret (Frances Gifford), Alabama southern belle with an eye for the "boys" Nydia Joyce (Diana Lewis), virtually invisible Steve Polden (Gloria Grafton), local Luisita Esperito (Fely Franquelli), Andra West (Heather Angel) and her younger sister Sue (Dorothy Morris). Robert Mitchum appears briefly, and uncredited (like all the other characters), as a groaning soldier. References are made to General MacArthur, Corregidor, and President Truman's order to evacuate which supersedes MacArthur's to dig in.
Though the film contains a few (unimpressive and requisite) action sequences, the story primarily takes place in the women's bunker, where they sleep and eat; there are a couple of scenes in the outer office of a never seen Lieutenant Thomas Holt (Addison Randall, uncredited does appear with field glasses covering his face near the very beginning), where a communications switchboard is operated by the women. Most of the scenes involve the women talking about their lives, the war, and its effect on themselves, their emotions, and each other.
Young Sue West talks about the simplicity of the situation (e.g. what's at stake): if they enemy wins, "we" die; she even says "if one of us dies, all of us will". She's the first to be lost in the first of the ever present air raid(s); she's later found, having lived trapped for four days among dead soldiers in a collapsed structure, such that she's pretty much a shell shocked basket case from then on. Her older sister Andra ends up being the second one to go missing, but later returns to triumphantly tout that she'd shot down an enemy plane when her anti-aircraft gunner "boyfriend" let her "man" the controls.
Connie, who'd initially been the biggest "fish out of water" and the most scared of the enemy's continuous bombing raid poundings, ends up growing a spine when a soldier dies in her arms such that she's the first to say she'll stay to the fateful end when the volunteers are given the opportunity (an hour into the film) to participate in a last chance evacuation. Ironically, she's the first to really die when she's strafed while swimming by an opportunistic Japanese pilot. It's also inferred that the enemy intentionally bombed the hospital. Helen, who initially expresses interest in Lieutenant Holt, is a calming influence and a voice of reason among the women while Grace, who laughingly tries to distract everybody's maudlin outlook by demonstrating her striptease act, says some things she shouldn't when her leg is wounded (an injury that magically disappears later).
The film's main subplot is relational, and it involves Smitty and Pat. Captain Marsh appears only briefly in a few scenes, including one at the beginning which is confusing until the end and one near the film's conclusion when she (somehow) appears in the bunker just before the voice of the enemy is heard outside. Pat has eyes for Lieutenant Holt, with whom (off-screen) she flirts incessantly to no avail. She's aware the Smitty is also interested in the Lieutenant, but doesn't see the seemingly all business, serious, and even homely nurse as much competition.
But Smitty has two secrets: not only is she suffering from malignant malaria (her Captain had wanted to evacuate her to better doctors in Australia even before the volunteers had arrived) but, as a civilian nurse, she'd married Lieutenant Holt; she's able to keep both of these facts from the others until (late in the film) she has an attack and reveals them to Flo, who then relates them to Pat. The film's final scene, after the bunker had been vacated by the others, with their hands above their heads, under orders from an unseen yet English speaking Japanese invader, shows these two women coming to terms with (respect for) one another.
Led by two veteran nurses, Lieutenant Mary Smith 'Smitty' (Margaret Sullavan) and Captain Alice Marsh (Fay Bainter), nine novice (e.g. only first aid expertise) volunteers receive on-the-job training (and quinine) to do the best they can to assist the officers with the continuous supply of American G.I. casualties on this precarious peninsula in the Philippine Islands. Connie Gilchrist, who plays the steady cook with a dry wit Sadie, and Marsha Hunt, who plays an already trained civilian that's calm and reasoned under all circumstances, Flo Norris, are the other two women.
The volunteers are streetwise Pat Conlin (Ann Sothern), former burlesque stripper Grace Lambert (Joan Blondell), fashion writer from a wealthy family Connie Booth (Ella Raines), attractive brunette Helen Domeret (Frances Gifford), Alabama southern belle with an eye for the "boys" Nydia Joyce (Diana Lewis), virtually invisible Steve Polden (Gloria Grafton), local Luisita Esperito (Fely Franquelli), Andra West (Heather Angel) and her younger sister Sue (Dorothy Morris). Robert Mitchum appears briefly, and uncredited (like all the other characters), as a groaning soldier. References are made to General MacArthur, Corregidor, and President Truman's order to evacuate which supersedes MacArthur's to dig in.
Though the film contains a few (unimpressive and requisite) action sequences, the story primarily takes place in the women's bunker, where they sleep and eat; there are a couple of scenes in the outer office of a never seen Lieutenant Thomas Holt (Addison Randall, uncredited does appear with field glasses covering his face near the very beginning), where a communications switchboard is operated by the women. Most of the scenes involve the women talking about their lives, the war, and its effect on themselves, their emotions, and each other.
Young Sue West talks about the simplicity of the situation (e.g. what's at stake): if they enemy wins, "we" die; she even says "if one of us dies, all of us will". She's the first to be lost in the first of the ever present air raid(s); she's later found, having lived trapped for four days among dead soldiers in a collapsed structure, such that she's pretty much a shell shocked basket case from then on. Her older sister Andra ends up being the second one to go missing, but later returns to triumphantly tout that she'd shot down an enemy plane when her anti-aircraft gunner "boyfriend" let her "man" the controls.
Connie, who'd initially been the biggest "fish out of water" and the most scared of the enemy's continuous bombing raid poundings, ends up growing a spine when a soldier dies in her arms such that she's the first to say she'll stay to the fateful end when the volunteers are given the opportunity (an hour into the film) to participate in a last chance evacuation. Ironically, she's the first to really die when she's strafed while swimming by an opportunistic Japanese pilot. It's also inferred that the enemy intentionally bombed the hospital. Helen, who initially expresses interest in Lieutenant Holt, is a calming influence and a voice of reason among the women while Grace, who laughingly tries to distract everybody's maudlin outlook by demonstrating her striptease act, says some things she shouldn't when her leg is wounded (an injury that magically disappears later).
The film's main subplot is relational, and it involves Smitty and Pat. Captain Marsh appears only briefly in a few scenes, including one at the beginning which is confusing until the end and one near the film's conclusion when she (somehow) appears in the bunker just before the voice of the enemy is heard outside. Pat has eyes for Lieutenant Holt, with whom (off-screen) she flirts incessantly to no avail. She's aware the Smitty is also interested in the Lieutenant, but doesn't see the seemingly all business, serious, and even homely nurse as much competition.
But Smitty has two secrets: not only is she suffering from malignant malaria (her Captain had wanted to evacuate her to better doctors in Australia even before the volunteers had arrived) but, as a civilian nurse, she'd married Lieutenant Holt; she's able to keep both of these facts from the others until (late in the film) she has an attack and reveals them to Flo, who then relates them to Pat. The film's final scene, after the bunker had been vacated by the others, with their hands above their heads, under orders from an unseen yet English speaking Japanese invader, shows these two women coming to terms with (respect for) one another.