It stars Deborah Kerr as an Irish nun and Robert Mitchum as a U.S. Marine, both stranded on a Japanese-occupied island in the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Deborah Kerr) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Producer Eugene Frenke later filmed The Nun and the Sergeant, a low-budget variation on the story, (1962), starring his wife Anna Sten.

[3] In the South Pacific in 1944, U.S. Marine Corporal Allison and his reconnaissance party are disembarking from a U.S. Navy submarine when they are discovered and fired upon by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA).

He finds an abandoned settlement and a chapel with one occupant: Sister Angela, a novice Irish nun who has not yet taken her final vows.

When Sister Angela is unable to stomach the raw fish that Allison has caught, he sneaks into the Japanese camp for supplies, narrowly avoiding detection.

When a Japanese soldier discovers the cave, Allison and Sister Angela have two options: surrender or die from a hand grenade thrown inside.

Responding to what he attributes to a message from God, Allison disables the artillery during the barrage that will precede the American assault while the Japanese are still in their bunkers.

John Lee Mahin, who wrote the script, called the original novel "a very dirty book" and claims producer Gene Frenke kept pushing for more sex to be added.

Mr. Mitchum has the edge on her as far as being well cast, and will, I think, be most believeable to the average audience, altho I doubt that any veteran Marine would stand out and do a jig under shellfire—even if it comes from the guns of the United States Navy as a prelude to a welcome American invasion.

"[8] The New York Times was complimentary: "That frequent and often popular story of a pious woman and an impious man cast together in circumstances that test the righteousness and fiber of each is tackled again by John Huston (he tackled it last in The African Queen)....And once more, Mr. Huston comes up with a film that is stirring and entertaining....with Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum in the leading roles—indeed, the only real roles in the picture—he has got it buckled to solid characters....If there does seem to be some repetition, that is something that has to be blamed on the singleness of the location and the meagerness of the cast.