While this is certainly not a great film, it is one of the better Allied propaganda films to come out of Hollywood during WWII. This story is unusual in that it concerns Aussies--a topic seldom covered in American pictures. Charles Laughton is sort of an "everyman" who you come to like. His life is going swimmingly until the Japanese attack. Forced to defend himself, his loved ones and his homeland, this ordinary guy rises to the occasion. I liked this because instead of a macho hero like Clark Gable or even Dana Andrews, Laughton is just so pudgy and ordinary that I think the message got across that war is won by the common people. A nice job of acting and writing--well worth watching.The only thing that was unsettling about the film was the weird relationship between "brother and sister" Richard Carlson and Donna Reed. That was just plain creepy! Otherwise, a lot of fun...

I've seen this film several times and always enjoy it. The plots, combining drama and comedy, action and romance, are certainly unusual, especially the Reed/Carlson/McNally "incest" triangle. Charles Laughton and Binny Barnes have great chemistry together as do Donna Reed and Richard Carlson.

I liked it. Your Australian viewer wrote, "Laughton gives the open, hearty, unsophisticated digger a valiant try but he's simply miscast. .." It was that bumbling, unsure-of-himself, yet hollow bravado that made us laugh. It was a scream.

The film is an interesting oddity for this antipodean viewer . Charles Laughton sounds like a Cockney but utters , fairly convincingly , a whole lot of contemporary (1943) Australian slang expressions like "strike me pink" and "bonzer" . Laughton gives the open , hearty , unsophisticated digger a valiant try but he's simply miscast: it was really a role crying out for Chips Rafferty but Chips' career was then only at the diaper stage . Binnie Barnes , Richard Carlson , Stephen McNally and even Donna Reed are more convincing in this milieu but there's an essential miscalculation about the whole venture that makes it unintentionally funny to an Australian audience . The shades of "incest" surrounding Richard Carlson's/Donna Reed's mutual attraction are resolved in a typically hypocritical deus ex machina style that you can see coming from the first reel . The Wells Root screenplay covers the period from World War 1 to World War 2 as Laughton tries to bring up , in Australia , the French orphans he inherited during his wartime stint in France. Robert Z Leonard , better known for his stylish direction of Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy operettas like "Maytime" directs this jumble in an ill-at-ease manner .