I am amazed at the reviewers who wrote negative descriptions that make me wonder if they paid attention to the film or even watched it. Van Johnson pilots a PBY badly damaged in an attack on a Japanese warship. Cameron Mitchell is not the co-pilot but is the plane's flight engineer. They are not stranded on a tropical island but are stuck in the plane with a broken radio that prevents them from radioing their location. Most of the crew was killed in action. Mitchell is cynical regarding their chances of survival; Johnson keeps the faith by telling about his childhood romance that finally came together when he saw June Allyson just before taking off on their patrol. Mitchell's cynicism does not make Johnson's recollections boring.
I saw this film on TV back in the 1960s and it has stayed in my memory all these years. That said, none of the reviewers mentioned that the film is based on the novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, authors of the "Mutiny on the Bounty" trilogy. I read the novel as an adult and was surprised to find that the ending in the book was very different from the film.
I saw this film on TV back in the 1960s and it has stayed in my memory all these years. That said, none of the reviewers mentioned that the film is based on the novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, authors of the "Mutiny on the Bounty" trilogy. I read the novel as an adult and was surprised to find that the ending in the book was very different from the film.