Cinema: The New Pictures, Mar. 6, 1950

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There is some lag in the early parts of the film, but when the Mary Loos-Richard Sale script finally manages to give Willie (Dan Dailey) his overseas assignment, it hits the stride of runaway farce. Within a wild four days, Willie flies the Atlantic twice, bails out of a B-17 over German-held France, joins the French underground, carries a top enemy secret to Eisenhower's headquarters and the Pentagon—and winds up back in Punxsutawney, suspected of desertion.

Well known for heavy dramatics (The Fugitive) and ambitious westerns (The Three Godfathers), Director Ford now shows a lively flair for broad strokes of comedy. Even when the movie gets close to his old home grounds, as in the cleanly staged scenes of overseas action, he tints it brightly with a sense of the ridiculous. In the French underground, bosomy Starlet Corinne Calvet, gotten up as an overblown copy of Rita Hayworth, makes a fancy leader of the Maquis. Back home, Evelyn Varden plays Willie's comically bland mother to perfection, and William Demarest, a graduate of Sturges comedies, lampoons the bellicose American Legionnaire father with merciless skill. Dan Dailey flings himself into the best role of his career with all his hoofer's timing and energy, makes befuddled Willie just as funny, human and enormously likable as he ought to be.