Passaggio conteso

This is a grossly underrated feature by Frank Borzage on the threshold to his last period and before the Second World War, dealing with a young doctor's medical education and development into a real doctor getting his hands thoroughly trained in the horrible mess of the war in China under constant attacks by the Japanese. The contrast between the safe idyllic student years and the war reality is overwhelming. He makes the acquaintance of a young Chinese nurse in America brought up and adopted there, and he meets her again in China: their love story is the main theme of the film. Dorothy Lamour is surprisingly good as the young Chinese student and nurse, but the great character of the film is Akim Tamiroff, in a role of a kind that usually Edward G. Robinson used to play, a grumpy veteran surgeon who usually scolds all his students with bitter sarcasms, but his character undergoes a great change as he also comes to China and find it necessary to reevaluate his entire attitude and position. I have never seen Akim Tamiroff so good. John Howard is all right as the young doctor, and the story is typical of Frank Borzage: outrageous crisis and redemption. It's a great human story well performed and convincingly realized.