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When Franklin Roosevelt finished his broadcast, Cecil B. De Mille, who knows a good movie story when he hears one, promptly registered the title with the Hays Office, beating four other studios to the draw.
Dr. Wassell is a big, bright, brassy, specious show in which Gary Cooper (as Dr. Wassell) goes through some highly Technicolored, highly ordinary motions, and every nurse in the picture (Laraine Day, Signe Hasso, Carol Thurston) is a shinier pippin than the one before. Typical characterization: Dr. Cooper imitating the grunt of a razorback hog and murmuring, "Good gravy!" Typical set: a remote Chinese village as cute as Christmas and twice as cheerful. Typical nurse: a little native number named Three Martini (Carol Thurston), who keeps her nurse's dress unbuttoned to expose a prettily filled Javanese brassiere. Typical pathos: a blinded Alabamian (named Alabam) who outhears everybody else and who, whenever there is dangerous confusion, cries: "Kin anybody see anything?" Typical use of music: a studio orchestra plays The Star-Spangled Banner, pianissimo, as the stranded stretcher cases watch the ship that refused to take them withdraw into a calendar sunset.
The Story of Dr. Wassell misfires not because it is unfaithful to fact—a picture much less faithful to fact could have been much more true. And Cecil B. De Mille has great respect for fact. But he is a born romancer, a highly experienced showman, and old-fashioned in both fields. His talents, as well as his limitations, conspire to turn a saga of simple heroism into a typical Hollywood entertainment feature. But they also hamper this picture as simple entertainment.